Overview[1]#
Bank Card Numbers or Payment Card numbers are found on Payment Cards, which includes Credit Cards or and Debit Cards, Payment Tokens as well as Stored-value cards, Gift Cards, Loyalty Cards and other similar cards.Bank Card Number have a certain level of internal structure and share a common numbering scheme. Bank Card Number are allocated in accordance with ISO/IEC 7812 and are most commonly 16 digits in length, and can be up to 19 digits.
The Bank Card Number format is:
- First digit - The Major Industry Identifier (MII) and is defined as:
- Issuer Identification Number - The first 6 digits of your credit card number (including the initial MII digit) is the Issuer Identification Number (IIN).
- Account Number - Digits 7 to (n - 1) of your Bank Card Number is the individual account identifier.
- a single check digit calculated using the Luhn algorithm.[2]
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Account Number#
Digits 7 to (n - 1) of your credit card number are your individual account identifier. The maximum length of a credit card number is 19 digits. Since the initial 6 digits of a credit card number are the issuer identifier, and the final digit is the check digit, this means that the maximum length of the account number field is 19 - 7, or 12 digits. Each issuer therefore has a trillion (10 raised to the 12th power, or 1,000,000,000,000) possible account numbers.If we consider the large number of potential customers and usurious interest rates charged by issuers, there is obviously a lot of money to be made in the credit card industry. In more civilized ages, people believed that usury was a grievous offense contrary to nature or a mortal sin, not an acceptable business practice (Aristotle, Politics 1.10; St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 13.4; Dante, Inferno 11.94-111; etc.).
Internally, the Card Issuer also would know individual account identifier has an association to:
- the customer
- And designated bank accounts (For Debit Cards)
- In the case of stored-value type cards, there may NOT be association with a particular customer.
Check Digit#
The final digit of the Bank Card Number is a check digit, akin to a checksum. Most Bank Card Numbers use the Luhn Algorithm for validation.More Information#
There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:- CVM
- Card Verification Method
- Cardholder Verification Method
- Issuer Identification Number
- Luhn Algorithm
- Major Industry Identifier
- Payment Card
- Payment Token
- Personally Identifiable Information
- Primary Account Number
- [#1] - Bank Card Number
- based on 2015-02-13
- [#2] - Anatomy of Credit Card Numbers
- based on information obtained 2016-01-15-
- [#3] - Anatomy of a credit card number and the utility of the BIN
- based on information obtained 2016-01-15-