New Standard for BIN Codes to be introduced from 1st April 2022

New Standard for BIN Codes to be introduced from 1st April 2022

For all credit card numbers, the first six digits of the card number identify the card scheme and also the financial institution that issued the card to the card holder. This is called the BIN which stands for Bank Identification Number.

As financial services continue to grow the existing 6 digit BIN code is no longer sufficient to cover the requirements of the industry. The ISO (the International Standards Organisation) therefore has announced a new standard that extends the BIN length from 6 to 8 digits.

Starting from 1st April 2022, the card schemes will adopt the new ISO standard so that both 6 digit and 8 digits BIN codes will be supported. The total number of digits in the card numbers will remain the same, typically 16 digits. Only the internal structure of the card number is changing.

Visa Mandate: Effective with the April 2022 VisaNet Business Enhancements release, Visa will only assign 8-digit issuing BINs for new requests; 6-digit BINs will no longer be assigned. All acquirers and processors must be ready to support the new 8-digit BIN standard adopted by the International Organization for Standardization.

Mastercard Mandate: Mastercard will adopt the ISO 8-digit BIN standard and will begin assigning 8-digit BINs to issuers by request, effective April 2022. To help ensure ecosystem readiness, Mastercard is mandating that all acquirers and their third party processors (TPPs) be able to support 11-digit account ranges and the 8-digit BIN standard by April 2022. Acquirers are responsible for ensuring that their merchants, payment facilitators, payment gateways, third party vendors, and all other service providers be able to support account range processing and the 8-digit BIN standard by April 2022.

For the most part, this change will be transparent to Cardholders and Merchants. However reporting, statements and configurations will be impacted. Endeavour will carry out the necessary upgrades to ensure that 8 digit BIN codes are fully supported.