Why is routing number called ABA/ABN number?
The ABA number you speak of is more accurately called the Routing Transit Number.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_transit_number A routing transit number (RTN) is a nine digit bank code, used in the   United States, which appears on the bottom of negotiable instruments   such as checks identifying the financial institution on which it was   drawn. This code was designed to facilitate the sorting, bundling, and   shipment of paper checks back to the drawer's (check writer's)   account. The RTN is also used by Federal Reserve Banks to process Fedwire funds   transfers, and by the Automated Clearing House to process direct   deposits, bill payments, and other such automated transfers. The RTN number is derived from the bank's transit number originated by   the American Bankers Association, which designed it in 1910.[1] I am going to assume that the euphemistic ABA Number has been shortened by whoever told you about it and called it the ABN.  Perhaps American Bank Number.  Either way, the technical term is RTN. Perhaps a comment or editor can straighten me out about the ABN. There is an international number known as the SWIFT number that serves the same purpose worldwide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9362 ISO 9362 (also known as SWIFT-BIC, BIC code, SWIFT ID or SWIFT code)   defines a standard format of Business Identifier Codes approved by the   International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It is a unique   identification code for both financial and non-financial   institutions.[1] The acronym SWIFT stands for the Society for   Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. When assigned to a   non-financial institution, the code may also be known as a Business   Entity Identifier or BEI. These codes are used when transferring money   between banks, particularly for international wire transfers, and also   for the exchange of other messages between banks. The codes can   sometimes be found on account statements. With number of Banks increasing every country at some point in time adopted an Identification code. In US these are called ABA number because they are allocated by American Bankers Association, in UK Sort Codes ... like wise for other countries. See list here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_code In some countries the numbers are given by Central Bank.   To enable internationl payments, the SWIFT body apart from message formats, allocated a  SWIFT BIC [Bank identification Code] so that Banks can be globally identified. Currently  IBAN being adopted in Europe & Australia to identify an Account [at a Bank] Uniquely across globe. In essence these number help uniquely identify a Location/Bank/Branch. The clearing house route the payments or collection instruments to the correct Bank on the basis of this number.
It is called the Monday Effect or the Weekend Effect. There are a number of similar theories including the October Effect and January Effect. It's all pretty much bunk. If there were any truth to traders would be all over it and the resulting market forces would wipe it out. Personally, I think all technical analysis has very little value other than to fuel conversations at dinner parties about investments. You might also consider reading about Market efficiency to see further discussion about why technical approaches like this might, but probably don't work. I did not single out Scandinavia. The person answering my original comment to this thread did.   The fact that economists view the structure of the US economy as different from other developed economies is a fact. I can give you quotes once I get back to my books at home.   Yes. Supply of work force drives wages. If you take a look at the original - Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - he also states that the fluctuating death rates of the workers is a natural part of economic cycles. Yet we would view this as brutal today.   Most of the developed world views having an underpaid unregulated illegal service class as basis of the economy as brutal and a form of slavery.   The people also want to come to the EU. They flock to the EU in bigger numbers than to the US. They are risking their lives trying to get to Europe along various routes. They drown in the Mediterranean by the thousands. They succumb at Sahara. They are at the hands of Turkish and Serbian criminal people smuggling gangs trying to get to EU through Greece. They try to breach the fence in Ceula by mass runs.  You may have not noticed this in world news, but there has been a migration of historic proportions going on to the EU for quite some time.  So why isn't there this underpaid illegal unregulated service class?   You tell me. I would sincerely like to know. "Nope, anything is that has the required information is fine.  At a minimum you need to have the routing number, account number, amount, ""pay to"" line and a signature. The only laws are that it can't be written on anything illegal, like human skin, and it has to be portable, not carved on the side of a building ( for example) https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-20434,00.html http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/12/people-actually-cash-big-novelty-checks-even-possible/ That said, the MICR line and standard sizes will make things eaiser for they bank, but are hardly required.  You could write your check on notebook paper so long as it had the right information, and the bank would have to ""cash it"". Keep in mind that a check is an order to the bank to give your money to a person and nothing more. You could  write it out in sentence form. ""Give Bill $2 from account 12344221 routing number 123121133111 signed _________"" and it would be valid. In practice though, it would be a fight. Mostly the bank would try to urge you to use a standard check, or could hold the funds because it looks odd, till they received the ok from ""the other bank"". But.... If you rant to fight that fight...." US checking accounts are not really secure, though many people use them. One form of check fraud has been highlighted by Prof. Donald Knuth and carried out by Frank Abagnale, as portrayed in the film Catch Me If You Can. Basically, anyone can write a check that would draw from your account merely by knowing your account number and your bank's ABA routing number.  With those two pieces of information (which are revealed on every check that you write), anyone can print a working check, either using a laser printer with MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) toner, or by placing an order with a check-printing company.  The only other missing element is a signature, which is a pretty weak form of authentication. When presented with such a check, your bank would probably honor it before finding out, too late, that it is fraudulent. A variant of this vulnerability is ACH funds transfers.  This is the mechanism through which you could have, say, your utility company automatically withdraw money from your account to pay your bill.  Unfortunately, the transfer is initiated by the recipient, and the system relies largely on trust with some statistical monitoring for suspicious patterns. Basically, the whole US checking system is built with convenience rather than security in mind, since other institutions are able to initiate withdrawal transactions by knowing just the ABA number and account number.  In practice, it works well enough for most people, but if you are paranoid about security, as you seem to be, you don't want to be using checks. The European system, which has largely eliminated checks in favor of payer-initiated push transactions, is safer by design. "Doesn't make any difference.  Reconciling is important, but if you are constantly checking the online balance in between (because you are NOT keeping track of a running register balance) then the fact that you *eventually* ""balance"" is irrelevant...  And in fact if you're NOT maintaining a register, then you're really not ""reconciling"" (or ""balancing"") anything.... you're just looking over a bank statement and saying *""OK that looks right""*; or, as is more likely in your case saying *""Waitaminute, that's not right ... Oh, I guess I forgot about that transaction... and that one... and that other one.""*" BIC and IBANN are used in EU (and some other OECD countries) for inter bank transfers. SWIFT is used everywhere for interbank transfers. In the US - IBAN system is not (yet, hopefully) available, so you have to use SWIFT. The codes may look the same, but these are different systems. More details here. Some people cannot get bank accounts because they have been seized by a creditor or they're illegal.   Some companies don't (or can't) deal with paper checks.  Giving them a prepaid debit card and auto depositing it to the card is sometimes simpler or cheaper.   Hell, when I was on unemployment the government tried to make me receive the funds on a debit card.  It was a major pain just to get the money sent to my bank account. A big issue for historical data in banking is that they don't/can't reside within a single system. Archives of typical bank will include dozen(s) of different archives made by different companies on different, incompatible systems. For example, see http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/big-bank-theory-chart-large.jpg as an illustration of bank mergers and acquisitions, and AFAIK that doesn't include many smaller deals. For any given account, it's 10-year history might be on some different system. Often, when integrating such systems, a compromise is made - if bank A acquires bank B that has earlier acquired bank C, then if the acquisition of C was a few years ago, then you can skip integrating the archives of C in your online systems, keep them separate, and use them only when/if needed (and minimize that need by hefty fees).  Since the price list and services are supposed to be equal for everyone, then no matter how your accounts originated, if 10% of archives are an expensive enough problem to integrate, then it makes financial sense to restrict access to 100% of archives older than some arbitrary threshold.