Many years ago I worked for a service bureau that supported many banks. You would be surprised how different 30 banks from the same state ( and the same 'region' ) can or want to be. Given the quantity of banking applications this service bureau provided, there was no way we could 'hard code' into the banking programs many of the simple types of 'variables' that were needed to support each bank. So each banking application ( Demand Deposit Accounting / DDA, Time Deposit Accounting / Savings Accounts, Installment Loans, Mortgage Loans, General Ledger, Proof and Transit / usually MICR processing ) had a VISAM ( not a typo, Variable Length ISAM ) dataset called the BCR ( Bank Control Record ) file, with the bank number being the key, that contained many of the customized variables that the various programs for each banking application needed for each bank. Some of the variables were simple, like the name/address of the bank, so not so simple, like the external transaction code of a 'cash out' ticket.
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