Glossary
BIN (bank identification number)
The BIN, bank identification number, also called the IIN, is the first six to eight digits of a card number. It identifies the scheme, the issuing bank and its country, and the card's type and level: debit or credit, consumer or commercial, prepaid, premium. A BIN table lets a platform know, before any provider is called, where a card comes from and what rules apply to it.
What the BIN tells a payment business
The issuing country decides whether a payment is domestic or cross-border for the acquirer and the issuer, which drives approval rates and fees. The card type decides the interchange level and whether a payout to the card is possible. The scheme decides which acquirers can take the card at all. All of that is known from the first digits, before the payer has finished typing.
BIN ranges in routing
Rules that read the BIN send domestic cards to the domestic acquirer, premium cards where their interchange is covered, prepaid cards away from merchants that do not accept them, and a specific issuer’s cards to the acquirer that approves them best. BIN tables change monthly as issuers add ranges, so the table behind the rules must be kept current.
On the platform
Tranzify reads the BIN on every card payment, keeps the scheme, the issuing country and the card level with the payment, offers them to routing rules and to the client’s own risk checks, and shows them in the trace and the reports.
Updated: 2026-11-08