Identify payment card details

Each Credit or Debit card has a number of key pieces of public information which can be identified by the first six digits of it's number.

Those include details such as:

  • Card Scheme aka. card network ( Visa, Mastercard etc.)
  • Name of the bank which issued the card
  • Type of card ( credit or debit )
  • Funding level ( premium/gold/prepaid etc. )
  • Country in which the card was issued




Recognize card scheme

The card schemes or card networks are large multinational organizations that specialize in building and managing the infrastructure needed for supporting payments with credit cards. Corporations such as the VISA network and MasterCard are some of the largest card schemes in the world. Those corporations regulate most aspects of issuing and using bank payment cards.

The Payment Card Identification Directory service can help you identify which network issued a card by matchng the first six digits of it's number.

Find country of issuing bank

By looking up the IIN (Issuer Identification Number) in the directory, you can also identify from which country the card is issued.

Identify financial institution name

By identifying the issuing bank name, you can often identify special types of cards such as co-branded cards and cards issued under bin sponsorship

Check account funding source type

The two main types of bank cards are Credit Cards and Debit Cards.
As the name suggests credit cards provide their holder with a line of credit which must be paid off.

Debit cards are linked to a bank account and can only make payments as long as there is a positive balance in the customer's bank account.
The data inside the PCI Directory also allows for differentiating between debit or credit card recognition

Determine card category / level

The PCI Directory allows our clients to determine if a card is Consumer or Commercial card. Differentiating consumer from commercial cards provides a valuable insight into the type of customer. This marker is very useful in fraud and payment risk assessment as a scoring factor. Payment Card levels describes important categories of bank cards based on spending limits and annual fees.

Additional card category markers allow Prepaid Cards Detection ( also useful in anti-fraud applicaitons )

For more information on Prepaid Card types and their implications, please visit the Prepaid Cards section