What does the BIN number on your credit card mean?

Anmol osm
3 min readNov 23, 2018

Our credit card has more information than you think. Through the chip, magnetic stripe and numbers printed on the card, the administrators can decode the customer data and validate any transaction.

One such information is the BIN. The acronym refers to the English term Bank Identification Number, which means “Bank Identification Number.” As it is nowadays not only the banks that issue cards, the Issuer Identification Number (IIN), which means “Issuer Identification Number,” has also been created. In both cases, the code includes the card number printed on the back of the card. Nowadays You can also do BIN number check through different free online services.

Check BIN list here on free site:

https://www.freebinchecker.com

What is the BIN of the Credit Card?

Identifying the BIN of the credit card is very simple. It corresponds to the first 6 numbers on the card. The other numbers that make up the sequence serve to identify the individual account that is linked to that card. Only the last digit is different. It functions as a check digit. For this, there is a mathematical formula, called Luhn’s algorithm, with which you can find the check digit by playing the other digits. So if you do not find the same digit, you can conclude that the card does not have a valid number.

Understanding BIN

The six numbers that make up the BIN or IIN of a card have important meanings for those who know how to analyze them. The first digit, for example, is the Main Industry Identifier. Thus, it indicates which sector of the company that issued the card. According to eHow:

  • cards started with 1 or 2 were issued by an airline;
  • Cards initiated by number 3 are the responsibility of an entertainment or travel company;
  • the most common cards are those initiated by numbers 4 or 5, issued by financial institutions;
  • already cards starting with 6 can be sent by a bank or retail store;
  • when the first number is 7, the card is issued by the oil industry;
  • the cardsindicated by number 8 are from the telecommunications area;
  • and cards starting with 9 or 0 can be issued by other sectors or even governments.

We did not find more accurate information on the use of these numbers. However, a table, available on the internet, shows the relationship between the beginning of the card number and the flags. Look:

  • 3 — JCB Intenational;
  • 3 — American Express;
  • 3, 5, 6 — Maestro;
  • 4 — Visa;
  • 5 — MasterCard;
  • 6 — China UnionPay;
  • 7 — universal electronic card.

The other digits that make up the BIN serve to identify the institution issuing the card, as we see above. A financial person can use only a sequence of numbers or many of them. Therefore, there are variations for Platinum or Gold type cards for example. The possibilities are many,and each company uses this data according to their needs and categories of the card.

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