What is a Bank Identification Number (BIN)? BIN Explained
Blog post from Basis Theory
A Bank Identification Number, or BIN, is the first four to eight digits of a payment card and identifies the card issuer, bank, card network, and certain transaction attributes, helping payment networks route authorization requests. Also called an Issuer Identification Number, it includes a Major Industry Identifier and network-specific number ranges, such as Visa cards beginning with 4 and Mastercard cards within designated ranges. As issuers move from six-digit to eight-digit BINs to expand available identifiers, card-number length remains unchanged, though PCI standards generally limit displayed information to the first six and last four digits. BIN fraud can involve criminals combining known BIN prefixes with randomly generated digits to test for valid cards, often indicated by unusual volumes of small transactions, rapid declines, or abnormal transaction activity. Organizations can reduce exposure to card data by using tokenization, which substitutes sensitive payment information with secure tokens while preserving limited data needed for business operations.
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