BinBase –A Review of the Bank BIN Database Provider Quick intro: Historically, most BINs have been six digits long, but recently the major card providers are moving towards longer BINs and account ranges of up to eleven digits. If you want to use BINs efficiently, you need a fast and reliable way to lookup BINs for all the cards you’re accepting and processing, including those with extended BINs. BinBase is your answer to those needs. BinBase provides manual and automated lookup of BINs of between 6 and 11 digits across all major credit and debit card issuers and networks. I found that BinBase can help to route payments more effectively, reduce the risk of fraud, and ultimately ensure I get paid faster. Before I dig into how BinBase can help, it’s worth exploring how BINs work and why you need an effective way to analyze them. This gonna be long so I broke it up a bit:
My First Challenge, or How I Came up to BinBase Extended BIN Exploration Process What the BinBase Database Tells You About a Card? The Benefits of BINs and BinBase BinBase Features for its Extended BIN Database Full Lookup and Analysis of BINs Longer than Six Digits Commercial BIN Detection Regulated and Unregulated Debit Detection Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts Card Detection Prepaid Reloadable and Non-Reloadable Debit Card Detection Virtual BINs Detection BinBase By the Numbers Try BinBase Before You Decide (Trial Options) Licensing Options to Meet Your Needs
My First Challenge, or How I Came up to BinBase We have came across a transaction when the payment was made seemingly by a British card but the client claimed it was a Spanish one. On top of that, his IP and physical
address address was definitely Spanish. The BIN in question was 511689. I did a quick lookup using first resouce found on Google search:
Still UK. I knew it was a business card, but further investigation was needed. Tried another one and it seemed to be UK at first. But look further down:
It's Spanish! Here we are. I realized that we actually need more than 6 digits to analyze. So I went ahead and contacted a vendor, BinBase, and after several emails back and forth purchased the Extended License. What I was able to find regarding this given BIN:511689? I was provided with a traditional 6 digit BIN database as well as a set of five files - 7,8,9,10 and11 digit card prefixes. They call it account ranges, but it really doesn't matter how we call it. It turned out that this 6 digit BIN has been split into a whole lot of countries!
As I had a full credit card number at my disposal, it was a no-brainer. But I had to dig as deep as to 11 digit file.
Extended BIN Exploration Process They sent the me the recommendation on how to proceed in my credit card analysis:
So I was told to begin my search from the highest numbers and then proceeding to the lowest. For example, I take first 11 digits from my PAN and if it's not found in 11 digit file, I move lower. If it's found, my research ends right here. Now let's move on with more stuff.
What the BinBase Database Tells You About a Card? In this example, let’s assume you have a credit card number of 5156 9069 4528 2696. Now, we’ll say the card provider used a six digit BIN, which in this case is515690. Here’s the output you would get if you fed that number into BinBase — I’ll use the superscript numbers in the example as references in the table below. Here’s a sample of the output from the Extended version of BinBase database for BIN 515690:
Here’s how that BIN information breaks down:
More on ISO codes and numbers here. As you can see, BinBase provides you with a wealth of information about individual BINs, but what’s the benefit to your organization?
The Benefits of BINs and BinBase
So, how does this BIN information help your organization with payment processing, routing payments, or collecting funds? I’m glad you asked. Knowing the BINs of your customers’ credit and debit cards can help in several ways: Reduce the risk of fraud due to identifying “spoofed” card numbers and other issues. Reduce the cost of chargebacks due to the customer deciding to reverse or challenge a payment. Increase the security of your cards by providing extra verification. Enhance
insight
into
your
customer
base
by
understanding the main countries, providers, card networks, types of cards and more, allowing for more targeted marketing and services. Enhance compliance with regulations like PCI DSS and other legislation. Manage card acceptance more accurately by weighing factors that increase the likelihood of fraud or chargebacks, based on BIN analysis.
Plan credit card processing strategies using BIN data to optimize processing speed and efficiency. Route payments more quickly, resulting in quicker receipt of cleared funds. Understand extended BINs and account ranges to optimize payment processing.
identification,
routing,
and
I believe that BinBase can provide your organization with the expertise, intelligence, and insight it needs to understand and optimize payment acceptance and processing. You can query BinBase, and then code that information into your payment acceptance and processing technology.
BinBase Features for its Extended BIN Database The above example just scratches the surface of what BinBase can do. It has plenty of additional functionality for users like you. This includes: Full lookup and analysis of BINs that are longer than six digits.
Commercial card and BIN detection. Regulated and unregulated debit card and BIN detection. Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts card and BIN detection. Prepaid reloadable and non-reloadable debit card and BIN detection. Virtual BIN and card detection.
Full Lookup and Analysis of BINs Longer than Six Digits The six digit BIN has been the standard for a long time. That's changing, as more card providers and networks move towards longer BINs, of between 7 and 11 digits. Here’s how extended BINs work: The first six digits of a BIN contain basic information about the card, as I discussed previously. Card providers can then choose to use between one and five additional digits to further “segment” their BINs,
known as an “account range.” These extended BINs and account ranges have several advantages for the card provider:
o Allows the supply of BINs to keep up with the increasing demand for different card types and products. o Empowers providers to use the BINs they have in a more efficient way. o Means card providers can segment cards and products more effectively, by country, type, rate, target market, audience segmentation, and more. o Increases the speed to market for new cards and products. Understanding these new BINs and account ranges can help you streamline and optimize payments, meaning you get your funds more quickly. I’ve completed some research on the timelines for these new, extended BINs, and here’s what I have learned.
About 28% of all 6 BINs were already split into different account ranges as of April 2018. Clients
and
processors
must
utilize
these
new
requirements by October 2017. Acquirers must ensure that all their systems are adapted to new regulations and new tables are imported in their systems. Major
brands
plan
to
complete
the
necessary
amendments to all client systems and applications by 2019. April 2022 is the deadline for agents to fully adapt to the new BIN system. All 6 digit BINs will become 7,8,9,10,11 digit BINs starting April 2022. If you’ve looked into BIN analysis, you’ll know that most other BIN providers only offer six digit BIN queries. If you need additional insight for more secure and efficient BIN processing, BinBase gives you the power you need.
Commercial BIN Detection
For me, one vital aspect of BinBase is the ability to detect whether a card is “Commercial” or “Personal.” Personal cards are those issued to private individuals, under their own names, typically used for everyday purchases like groceries, consumer electronics, etc. Commercial cards are those issues to corporations and employees, typically used for business needs and expenses like travel, accommodation, business spending, etc. Although this is useful information for organizations worldwide, it’s especially important to merchants, payment providers, and payment gateways in the European Economic Area. That’s because a piece of European legislation, the “ Payment Service Directive II” introduces new rules about how personal and commercial cards are treated, specifically: European merchants cannot levy additional fees or charges on payments made from personal cards. Only commercial cards can have additional fees or charges made to them by a European merchant.
It is vital that no personal cards are marked, treated, or charged as commercial cards. This means it is illegal to have a surcharge on a personal card issued to a private individual, and there are penalties for breaching this rule. We all need to be careful we don’t apply additional charges to personal cards. BinBase helps you avoid that by providing personal and commercial detection as part of its extended licensing options, for all BIN ranges, from six to eleven digits.
Regulated and Unregulated Debit Detection Another useful area if you’re processing cards in the US is that BinBase makes it easy for US merchants, vendors, payment processors, and gateways to detect if a debit card is “regulated” or “unregulated.” This matters because the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 changes the debit interchange fee that can be charged on swiped cards. The legislation defines two types of banks:
Regulated (exempt) banks have assets of more than $10 billion. Non-regulated (non-exempt) banks have assets of less than $10 billion. That affects the fees charged based on the bank that issued the debit card, as follows: For a regulated, exempt bank, the debit fee is 0.05% + $0.21 For an unregulated, non-exempt bank, the debit fee is 1.60% + $0.05. I’ve learned that these fees are only for the “interchange” part of the payments process, and will only be a portion of the total fee that merchants need to pay. As you can see, it’s important to understand if a card is issued from a regulated or unregulated provider or bank. This can help organizations understand the fees they are likely to pay for accepting debit cards from specific banks and providers.
BinBase provides regulated and unregulated detection as part of its extended licensing options, for all BIN ranges, from six to eleven digits.
Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts Card Detection The US market has a couple of different types of accounts used for saving and spending on healthcare and medical expenses. These accounts can have cards attached to them which can be used to make payments. There is sometimes confusion in how these cards can be used, as I discovered here , “A FSA Debit Card is a type of debit card issued in the United States. It can access taxfavored spending accounts such as flexible spending accounts (FSA) and health reimbursement accounts (HRA), and sometimes health savings accounts (HSA) as well. All such cards to date bear the Visa, MasterCard, or Discover brand and operate through their main networks; thus all FSA debit card transactions are of the offline variety. This can create confusion as merchants attempt to steer debit
cards to online debit (aka "PIN debit" or just plain "debit"); FSA debit cards will not work that way.” BinBase has a useful function that lets you verify these cards and helps you avoid payment issues. When you make a BIN query to BinBase, the database will tell you if you’re dealing with an FSA or HSA card as part of the “Category” field, as follows:
Prepaid Reloadable and Non-Reloadable Debit Card Detection You’ve probably noticed that prepaid cards are becoming popular, with merchants and payment providers needing to process them more frequently. There are two main types of prepaid debit cards: Reloadable, where the cardholder can easily spend from the card and add funds (reload) the card to top up the available balance.
Non-reloadable, where the cardholder buys the card with a pre-existing account amount. Once this amount is used up, it cannot be replenished and the card should be discarded. BinBase can detect these types of cards so you can treat them appropriately. When you make a BIN query to BinBase, the database will tell you is you’re dealing with a prepaid, reloadable or nonreloadable card as part of the “Category” field, as follows:
Virtual BINs Detection Some types of credit and debit cards don’t exist as pieces of plastic, instead, they are “virtual” only. This means they also have virtual BINs, which BinBase can detect. This lets you treat virtual payment cards slightly differently, for example subjecting them to more rigorous verification techniques to avoid fraud. When you make a BIN query to BinBase, the database will tell you is you’re dealing with a virtual BIN, as follows:
BinBase By the Numbers I found out some surprising stats about BinBase: Over 350,000 records for six digit BINs. Over 530,000 records for BINs / account ranges of longer than six digits. 20 card brands. Three card types. Over 150+ card categories. BIN details for over 200 countries, worldwide. Monthly updates of BINs. It looks like this puts them ahead of their competitors.
Try BinBase Before You Decide (Trial Options)
If you’re involved in card acceptance, management, processing, or gateways, you owe it to yourself to give BinBase a try: Manual Lookup of BINs for Free (10 a Day)
You can make up to ten manual searches a day through BinBase, at no cost to you. Make your searches here. Lookup of BINs for Free (up to 100)
Drop them a mail containing a list of up to 100 BINs in a text file, one BIN per row. This also comes free of charge. Bulk BIN Lookup
If 10 or even 100 is not enough, you can buy credits for your BinBase account and get access to their services. This is the method I use. Prices are not that steep compared to the product cost. Or if you don't want to deal with online service, they can do manual lookups for the same price. Just send the BINs over email and get the quote.
Licensing Options to Meet Your Needs BinBase provides three different types of licensing, depending on the needs of your organization — Single License, Universal License, and Extended License. You can find out more on the license page , or in the table below.
I recommend you try BinBase today and learn how it can revolutionize your credit and debit card acceptance and processing.
http://binbasereview.com/