Plastic money is ruling the world as it has replaced the cash transactions along with the cash payments to the possible extend. No customer would like to pay cash for buying anything. Carrying the credit card was considered a status symbol before a few years. However, it has become an essential part of life like food and clothes. While the facts about credit card usage like how to get credit card, credit limit, types of credit cards, etc are known to all from primary school children, the unknown fact is the credit card number.
How are credit card numbers issued by the banks and how are the brands classified? Who is responsible for issuing the credit card numbers? Are they offered in a specific series or just issued with randomly selected numbers? On what basis the numbers are defined? What is the association between the certain brands of cards and the banks?
Answers and clarifications of all the questions lie in the credit card number, called the credit card bin number.
What is credit card bin number?
The first 4 or 6 digits of a credit card number are known as the credit card bin number. Each credit card is offered with 14 to 16 digit numbers; the first 6 digits are referred as bank identification number, shortly termed as credit card bin. The bin number is applicable for prepaid credit card and is referred as prepaid credit card bin.
Example of credit card bin number:
XXX Bank Visa Credit card number: 4864 1021 2012 1245
Credit card bin # of this card is 4864 10.
The bin numbers of credit card are offered by the respective brands of the cards. The popular brands include Visa, Master Card, American Express, Diners Club and Discover. In the above example, the bin number is also termed as credit card bin visa number.
The brands are responsible for issuing the numbers for the credit cards under specific sequence. Each brand offers the credit card numbers in association with respective banks and credit card issuers.
The 6 digits don’t just represent the bin of the credit card. Rather, each digit represents a specific factor including the brand, type of card, class of card, sub-classification of card, etc. In this context credit card bin number list is issued. The range of bin numbers varies with each brand of credit card. This part is referred as the credit card bin range. The credit card bin ranges of visa starts with 4, MasterCard starts with any number from 51 to 55, amex card starts from 34 or 37, etc.
As stated above these numbers are the bin numbers of the credit cards, which are stored in a private database. The bin numbers of credit cards are stored in a database called credit card bin base or credit card bin database. The credit card database of bin numbers store the bins of all active cards issued by these brands in form of list. There is no major difference between credit card bin numbers list or credit card bin ranges list and they resemble the similar meaning of credit card bin #.
