8 Digit BIN

Dynamic Payment Solutions. Trusted Results.
Preparing for the Migration to 8-Digit BIN

Understanding how the 8-Digit BIN Migration will affect Visa issuers and helping credit
unions prepare for the April 2022 deadline.
What’s Happening.
Basically, the payment industry is growing. 6-digit BINs are
reaching a point of depletion. Before depletion occurs, 6-digit
BINs will be migrated to 8-digit BINs. The International Organiza-
tion for Standardization (ISO) has set forth a plan for migration
with a completion date of April 2022. On April 2022, the Visa
pool of approximately 100,000 six-digit issuing BINs will become
10,000,000 eight-digit issuing BINs. After April 2022, 6-digit
BINs will not be available for assignment. However, existing
6-digit BINs will continue to be supported as they become 8-digit
BINs.
All of the following entities are impacted by the migration:

• Issuers
• Acquirers
• Processors
• Merchants
Migration testing starts in 2019 and formal migration goes until

April 2022, allowing for about 2 1/2 years for migration. Visa pro-
cessing logic will be updated as well to handle 8-digit BINs. While
VisaNet changes are expected to be small, Visa is allowing plenty
of time for clients to implement higher impact changes.
Member Access Processing Preparing for the Migration to 8-Digit BIN

How Did We Get Here?
A few years ago, 6-digit BINs were plenty to handle the processing of credit card pay-
ments. Payment processors and issuers created systems around the 6-digit BIN. But
with industry growth and especially the use of tokenization, 6-digit BINs are reaching
a point of exhaustion.
ISO has decided to move to 8-digit BINs, which replenish the number of available
BINs. To ensure all entities involved in the payment network are able to continue pro-
cessing payments, Visa has set a deadline that it believes will allow plenty of time for
migration from 6-digit BINs to 8-digits.
How Does it Affect Me?

Processors and payment vendors will be impacted by the 8-digit BIN migration. Any
unused 8-digit BINs should be returned to the bank’s or credit union’s provider pool.
No cards should be issued with BINs outside of those that are already being used.
Visa will not communicate directly with unaffiliated third-party entities. These entities
will not have access to the migration testing environment. Clients who have contract-
ed unaffiliated third parties must communicate with them any information on migra-
tion and facilitate testing.
BIN migration affects both card-present and card-not-present channels. Tokens will
not be impacted as Visa assigns them at the 9-digit account number level rather than
6-digit BIN.
What Action Should I Take?

Everything you need to do is on the back end and does not involve customers. Cus-
tomer credit cards are fine and do not need to be reissued. Identify all areas where
6-digit BINs are used within your system. These may include billing, reporting, and en-
rollment forms. Any billing statements that are displaying 6-digit BINs should display
8-digit BINs after migration.
Any unused nine-digit account ranges within their current six-digit issuing BINs must
be deactivated before April 2022. This will simplify the post-migration management of
the expanded BIN pool.
After the April 2022 migration, issuers should return any un-used eight-digit issuing
BINS to Visa. Work with your vendors and issuer processors to deactivate these BINs.
For acquirers and merchants who route and process transactions based on six-digit
issuing BINs, they must now route and process transactions based on Account Range
Prefix. Otherwise, processing inconsistencies will occur today and in the future.
Request an Account Range Utilization report from Visa to see which BINs are being
used. You can request the report by emailing NumericsSupport@Visa.com.
Steps To Migrate To 8-Digit BIN

Visa will have a test environment setup in 2019 for industry participates along with
best practices. You can read the latest documentation here www.VisaOnline.com.
To migrate from a 6-digit BIN to 8-digits, you must first inform Visa of your plans us-
ing their automation tool located at www.VisaOnline.com.

What Happens If I Do Nothing?
Acquirers, merchants, and processors risk misrouting and misprocessed transactions
if they can’t meet the April 2022 deadline. They will also incur Numerics Licensing and
BIN Underutilization fees.
The Anatomy Of A Credit Card Number

Let’s look at what makes up a 16-digit Visa credit card number. We’re going to analyze
the following credit card number:
4000 1234 5678 9010
• 4 (first digit) - MII (Majority Industry Identifier).

• 4000 12 - IIN or BIN. Identifies institution that issued card.
• 34 5678 901 - Account Identifier Number. Customer’s account number.
• 0 (last digit) - Checksum. Validates credit card number using Luhn algorithm.
• All digits - PAN (primary account number).
The two-digit MII has its own set of codes to identify different industries:
• 1 and 2 Airlines (Diners Club enRoute)
• 3 Travel & Entertainment (non-banks such as American Express, Diner’s
Club, JCB, and Carte Blanche)
• 4 Banking & Financial (Visa, Switch, and Electron)
• 5 Banking & Financial (Mastercard and Bankcard)
• 6 Merchandising & Finance (Discover Card, Laser, Solo, Switch, and China
UnionPay)
• 7 Petroleum
• 8 Telecommunications
• 9 National Assignment
Source: http://www.dirigodev.com/blog/ecommerce/anatomy-of-a-credit-card-number/

The first few digits identify the credit card type:
• Visa: 4
• Mastercard: 5
• Discover: 6011, 644, 65
• American Express: 3, 37
• Diner’s Club and Carte Blanche: 300, 305, 36, 38
All Visa credit cards start with a 4. They are in the bank and financial industry,
which also uses a 4. Using the credit card number above, when it comes to the
BIN, that number is “4000 12” and will extend to “4000 1234” with the 8-digit
BIN.
Visa’s 8-digit BIN migration deadline is less than three years away. While that
may seem like a lot of time, it will also take much time to root out all of the places
where BIN updates will impact your systems. According to Visa’s timeline, you
should already be in the testing phase. If you haven’t started BIN migration yet,
there’s no better time to start than now. The deadline is only getting closer.
Additional Resources
Visa Online (VOL) Numerics Page
Numerics VOL page is regularly updated with new documentation and resources related
to Visa’s Numerics Initiative. Includes Frequently Asked Questions, information related to
short-term conservation strategies, as well as the long-term migration to the eight-digit
issuing BIN.
Global Technical Letter and Implementation Guide (GTLIG)
Visa will publish articles in the semi-annual GTLIG as necessary. General articles may ap-
pear in the informational sections, while articles detailing specific mandatory requirements
will appear in the relevant regional or global sections.
Visa Business News (VBN)
For announcements that occur between versions of the GTLIG, Visa will publish VBN ar-
ticles. Review each issue of the VBN carefully for the latest numerics-related information.
Visa Business News articles are listed on the Numerics Initiative page at www.VisaOn-
line.com.
The NumericsSupport@visa.com mailbox is monitored by Visa’s Numerics subject matter

experts and is available for client use. Questions may be submitted to the mailbox, as well
as requests for account range utilization reports (for clients preparing to enroll in VTS) and
eight-digit BIN reports.
For reporting requests, clients must provide the assigned BID. (i.e. BIN plus 1 digit)10 Ac-
count ranges in an 8-digit BIN 9...21041234567(i.e. BIN plus 3 digits)1000 Account ranges
in a 6-digit BIN 999...002001000412345
20829 72nd Ave S. - STE 600 | Kent, Washington 98032 | 866-598-0698 | www.MAProcessing.com

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Dynamic Payment Solutions. Trusted Results.

Preparing for the Migration to 8-Digit BIN

All of the following entities are impacted by the migration:

Migration testing starts in 2019 and formal migration goes until

Member Access Processing Preparing for the Migration to 8-Digit BIN

How Does it Affect Me?

What Action Should I Take?

Steps To Migrate To 8-Digit BIN

Member Access Processing Preparing for the Migration to 8-Digit BIN

The Anatomy Of A Credit Card Number

4000 1234 5678 9010

• 4 (first digit) - MII (Majority Industry Identifier).

Member Access Processing Preparing for the Migration to 8-Digit BIN

Global Technical Letter and Implementation Guide (GTLIG)

Visa Business News (VBN)

The NumericsSupport@visa.com mailbox is monitored by Visa’s Numerics subject matter

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