Canada Bank Account Number

Detects Canada Bank Account Number patterns. This pattern is based on a Microsoft Purview built-in sensitive information type. Financial account numbers require corroborative evidence for reliable detection due to their generic numeric format.

Type

regex

Engine

universal

Confidence

low

Confidence justification

Low confidence: seven to twelve digit numbers are extremely common in non-financial contexts. Bank account keywords are essential for distinguishing financial identifiers from general numbers. Context label evidence plus explicit template/example exclusion improves precision for high-risk identifiers. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.

Detection quality

Verified

Jurisdictions

ca

Regulations

Law 25 (QC), PIPEDA

Frameworks

ISO 27001, ISO 27701, PCI-DSS, SOC 2

Data categories

pii, financial

Scope

narrow

Risk rating

9

Platform compatibility

Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Compatible

Pattern

\b\d{7,12}\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

bank account, account number, chequing, savings, banking, bank account number, savings account, ACH, ANZ, ASB, BNZ, checking, financial institution, Kiwibank, routing, Westpac, חשבון בנק, מספר חשבון, סניף, 口座番号 (+50 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• 1234567 — Seven-digit Canadian bank account number
• 123456789012 — Twelve-digit Canadian bank account number
• 987654321 — Nine-digit Canadian bank account

Should not match

• 123456 — Six digits, too short for Canadian bank account
• 1234567890123 — Thirteen digits, exceeds Canadian bank account format
• sample template placeholder number 123456789 — Template/sample context should be excluded even when numeric-like values appear
• template example placeholder record identifier — Template/sample context should be excluded even when anchor words are present

Known false positives

• Generic numeric sequences such as reference numbers, invoice numbers, or identifiers from other domains Mitigation: Require corroborative evidence keywords within the proximity window to distinguish financial account numbers from general numeric data.
• Phone numbers, postal codes, or other structured numbers with similar digit counts Mitigation: Layer with other detection patterns to deprioritise matches that overlap with phone number or postal code formats.

References

• Canada Bank Account Number entity definition - Microsoft Learn