BIN
Bank Identification NumberIdentifiers
The first six (or, since 2022, eight) digits of a card's primary account number, identifying the issuing bank, card scheme, country, and product type. Merchants and fraud-screening tools use BIN data to make routing, pricing, and risk decisions before authorization.
In practice.
The BIN tells you which bank issued the card, its country and its product type before you process. Merchants use BIN data for routing choices, geo-blocking, and spotting mismatches such as a card country that never matches the customer country. In high-risk verticals, BIN-level blacklists are a standard gateway control.