The first digit is major industry identifier (MII – refer Table below), followed by 5 digits. “American Bankers Association” is the registration authority for the Issuer Identification Numbers (IINs).Īn IIN is six digits long. The purpose of the numbering system is to uniquely identify a card issuing institution in an international interchange or closed environment. Here’s a look at some others, for comparison ” – Garrico Saito on ISO/IEC 7812 defines the card numbering system. “Although 16 digits is a commonly-used number, it would appear that no external force or regulatory agency is forcing credit card companies to be consistent in the number of internally-assigned digits that they use. “Actually, Amex no longer issues all their cards themselves, but for obvious reasons their contracted banks use the same number format” – John Levine on The structure of their 15 digit PAN is: system identifier, type, currency, account number, a check digit.

įor American Express, they issue their credit cards themselves. The structure of the 16 digit PAN (Primary Account Number) includes: system identifier, issuer/bank identifier, bank number, account number, a check digit. Visa and MasterCard do not issue credit cards instead, they use banks (financial institutions) to issue the cards. “Visa and MasterCard always have 16 digits whereas American Express has 15 digits. That is because IINs are used by companies other than Banks too.

The first 6 or 8 digits of a payment card number (credit cards, debit cards, etc.) are known as the Issuer Identification Numbers (IIN), previously known as Bank Identification Number (BIN). The card number on financial cards are usually 16 or 19 digit long. Card Number is also known as “Primary Account Number (PAN)”.

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