What is BIN in Card Payments? A Guide Every Merchant Need

Issuing Bank: The name of the bank that issued the card.

Card Network: The brand of the card, like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or Discover.

Card Type: Whether the card is a debit, credit, or prepaid card.

Card Category: The level of the card, such as consumer, corporate, commercial, or international.

ICountry of Issuance: The country where the card was issued. This helps identify cross-border transactions.

Risk Indicators: Certain BIN ranges might be associated with higher fraud risk, which can help merchants in their fraud detection efforts.

Domestic or International: Whether the transaction is domestic or involves a foreign bank.

Customer enters card details: The customer enters the card number, expiry, CVV, and other details on the checkout page. At this stage, the BIN is already present as the first six or eight digits of the card number.

Data is sent to the payment gateway The gateway receives the details securely and reads the BIN instantly.

Gateway uses BIN to identify the issuer and card network: The gateway identifies the issuing bank, network, card type, and region using its internal BIN data or metadata supplied by the acquirer or network.

The authorisation request goes to the acquirer: The gateway sends the authorisation request to the acquiring bank or processor responsible for handling the merchant’s transactions.

Acquirer routes the request into the right card network: With the help of the BIN, the acquirer routes the transaction to the correct path, making sure Visa, Mastercard, or any other network receives the request correctly.

The card network forwards the request to the issuing bank: The card network uses the issuer identification data to route the request to the correct issuing bank.

The issuing bank validates and responds: The bank checks if the card is active, the balance is sufficient, and runs fraud filters linked to BIN behaviour, transaction amount, merchant category, location, and customer history. It then sends back an approval or decline code.

Response returns to the merchant’s checkout:The message travels back following the same chain from issuer → network → acquirer → gateway → checkout page, it then shows payment successful or a decline due to an error.

Reduce Failed Transactions: By analysing BIN data, you can spot patterns and see which banks tend to decline payments more often. With this insight, you can adjust your payment routing to send transactions where they have the best chance of being approved.

Prevent Costly Misrouting: Sending a payment to the wrong acquiring bank doesn’t just increase the chance of it being declined; it can also lead to higher transaction fees. A BIN insights dashboard helps ensure every transaction takes the most efficient path.

Decrease Fraud and Chargebacks: You can identify and block transactions by analysing BIN data, especially when certain ranges show higher historical fraud patterns. This proactive approach helps you minimise financial losses and the headache of managing chargebacks.

Predict Payment Success: By tracking how transactions from different BINs perform, you can start to predict which payments are likely to be approved based on factors like currency, region, or payment processor. This predictability allows for smarter, data-driven decisions.

Manage Cross-Border Risks: When a customer uses an international card, the risk of fraud can be higher. Identifying these cards by their BINs allows you to apply more specific fraud-prevention rules and manage these transactions more effectively.

Create a Better Customer Experience: Nothing frustrates a customer more than a failed payment at checkout. By reducing the number of declined transactions, you create a smoother, more reliable experience that builds trust in your brand.

Understand Your Customer Better: Analysing which card types are most common, such as corporate vs. personal or domestic vs. international, gives you valuable insights into who your customers are and how they prefer to pay.

Troubleshoot Payment Issues Faster: When payment problems occur, BIN information helps your team quickly determine if the issue is with a specific issuing bank or a particular type of card, allowing for a faster resolution.

When Checkout Failures Increase: If customers report that their cards are being declined, or you’re seeing that any BIN is regularly declined, you can analyse if it is tied to a specific bank or card type.

When Approval Rates Suddenly Drop: A sudden drop in your overall payment approval rate is often a red flag that there’s an issue with a group of issuing banks.

When Entering New Markets: As you expand internationally, understanding the local payment landscape, including the most common card issuers and types, is critical for success.

When Offering Subscriptions: Recurring payments are more likely to be declined. Analysing BIN data can help you build strategies to improve the success rate of subscription renewals.

When You See a Spike in Fraud: If fraudulent transactions are increasing day by day, BIN data can help you pinpoint whether the activity is coming from a specific region or card type.

When Testing New Payment Routes: Before rolling out a new payment processor or acquirer, use BIN analysis to figure out the most efficient routing strategy for different cards.

Using Outdated BIN Information: The global list of BINs is always changing. Relying on an old database can lead to misidentifying cards, resulting in incorrect routing and more declines.

Confusing a Simple Lookup with Analytics: A basic BIN lookup simply tells you the card issuer. True BIN analytics involves tracking the performance of different BINs over time to uncover trends in approval rates, fraud, and customer behaviour.

Relying Only on 6-Digit BINs: The world has shifted to 8-digit BINs. If you’re still only using the first six digits, you risk misidentifying cards and routing them incorrectly.

Not Tracking Issuer Behaviour: Not monitoring how different issuing banks handle transactions leads to missing out on key opportunities to optimise your payment routing for higher approval rates.

Treating All Cards the Same: Prepaid, corporate, and standard consumer cards all have different risk profiles and usage patterns. Grouping them together can lead to either lost sales or increased fraud.