14 April 2005

Capscan Launches Complete Addressing Solution for Northern Ireland

Matchcode With Pointer® Delivers Industry's First Comprehensive Standardised Address Database of all 805,000 Northern Ireland Properties

Capscan, a leading supplier of international address management solutions, today announced that for the first time an addressing solution containing the complete authoritative database of Northern Ireland's 805,000 addresses is now available. Matchcode with Pointer® provides private and public sector organisations with a complete address management system for Northern Ireland. It is available now, as a stand-alone program for interactive data capture, or as a tool for batch postcoding and address cleansing.

Matchcode with Pointer® includes information on building numbers and names, postcodes, secondary thoroughfare and locality information where available, post town, building status, organisation and department name, sub-occupancy details, geo-codes, unique property reference numbers (UPRN), business names, delivery point status, derived business use information and detailed business classification information. It also allows enhancement of addresses with additional information including other business data sets, NHS codes and lifestyle data.

As well as checking addresses interactively, Matchcode with Pointer® enables bulk cleansing or processing of large quantities of address data via a simple to use wizard. In batch mode it typically produces match rates of 90% or more on a first run and process up to one million records per hour. Abbreviations, mis-spellings and incomplete addresses can be identified using its 'fuzzy matching' processing, as well as delivering full accurate addresses from a postcode or partial address.

Managing Director of Capscan, Terry Hiles comments: "There are currently over 200 different address datasets in use within the Northern Ireland Civil Service alone, each of which is separately managed and maintained. This results in inefficient duplication of effort in collecting and maintaining address data and it inhibits the ability to share address related data. Matchcode with Pointer® simply and efficiently resolves this issue."

The Pointer® database was created following an extensive data matching exercise conducted on the datasets maintained by Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland®, Royal Mail and the Valuation & Lands Agency, with each property in the database being assigned a unique reference number and geo-spatial coordinates.

Matchcode with Pointer® is available now and can be purchased as an integrated address management system with both the interactive and batch processing components, or as a stand-alone solution containing the individual modules.

Note: Pointer® is a registered trademark of Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland®. ©Crown copyright 2005.

About Pointer®

Pointer® is the most complete authoritative database of all Northern Ireland addresses. It is a comprehensive and standardised address database, which holds address information for every property in Northern Ireland. It was created following a complex data matching exercise on the address datasets maintained by Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, Royal Mail and the Valuation & Lands Agency. In the database, each property has a unique reference number and geo-spatial coordinates. Pointer® provides infrastructural support to private and public sector organisations alike. It contains unrivalled detailed address information including information on building numbers and names, postcodes, secondary thoroughfare and locality information where available, post town, building status, organisation and department name, sub-occupancy details, unique geo-codes, unique property reference numbers (UPRN), business names, delivery point status and derived business use information, and detailed business classification information.