Moving from 6 digit BIN to 8 digit BIN
Bank Identification Number (BIN) initially is a unique 6-digit number assigned by ISO to card payment networks and then by the networks it is then assigned to the processors, acquirers, issuers and other financial institutions involved in the interchange process; it is the first six digits of the cardholder’s account number.
BIN has been known for running with 6 digits. Spurred by the rapid growth of the payments business, the industry recognized a need to increase the available pool of BIN values and adopted a process to increase the available supply.
To address the industry shortage in supply, the International Organization of Standards (ISO) has expanded the length of issuing BINs from 6 to 8 digits (ISO/IEC 7812-1: Identification Cards). Although the BIN lengths are changing from the first 6 to the first 8 digits of Visa and MasterCard Primary Account Numbers (PAN), PAN lengths, and 9-digit account range lengths will not be modified.
To comply with the schemes’ rules, Xendit will also adopt the implementation of 8 digit BIN. Inability to comply might disrupt transaction processing, routing, and other downstream activities.
What will be impacted?
- Masked card number
- If card is identified as an 8-digit BIN card and PAN is ≥16 digit, All API responses with masked_card_number may return first 8 and last 4 (40000000XXXX0000) instead of first 6 and last 4
- Credit card promotion based on BIN
- You can create a promotion based on BIN by adding the 6 or 8 digits BIN to the BIN list
What’s not changing?
- Primary Account Number (PAN) Length will remain same as today
- Existing Merchant IDs and Acquirer ID numbers will not change
What merchants need to do?
If you are not implementing any validation or processes based on BIN, no action is required from the merchant side. On the contrary, if you have processes that validates the BIN you get from Xendit, you should check if these validations are still working with the 8 digit BIN.
Last Updated on 2023-11-06