The card organisations Visa and Mastercard will extend the BIN (Bank Identification Number) of their cards from 6 to 8 digits globally on April 1st 2022. Among other things, the BIN is used by merchants and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) for routing transactions for authorisation, fraud prevention, loyalty programs or reportings. The change of the BIN-length is a regulation change. Whether you are in face-to-face business or e-commerce, as a merchant you need to be compliant next year.

The first 6 digits of the Primary Account Number (PAN) of credit, debit and prepaid cards are called Bank Identification Number (BIN), known in our platform as Issuer Identification Number – IIN. This number is generally used to identify the scheme, the issuers and can allow you to retrieve other payment information like the card type or the currency used.

Because of the increasing demand by issuers, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) introduced a new standard. The card organisations Visa and Mastercard will extend the IIN of their cards from 6 to 8 digits globally on April 1st 2022. The general length of the card number (e.g. 16 and 19 digits for Visa and Mastercard in Europe) will not change.

Visa and Mastercard are implementing the new 8-digit standard from April 2022.

What will change for you?

For most merchants, this 8-digit extension will have no impact. For a small part of merchants, it could have an impact on your day-to-day operations if you have dedicated processing based on IINs: For example, this affects routing of transactions, identification of the issuer for fee calculation, fraud management and reporting. However, you as a merchant need to be compliant with the new IIN-system at the deadline. If this is not the case, a significant loss in sales due to e.g. rejected cards might result – depending on the implementation.

What do you have to do?

As a Worldline customer, you don't have to do anything in order to continue using our services. Worldline is already compliant and has updated its products to recognize 8-digit IINs.

But if you use 3rd party acquirers, 3rd party PSPs or Integrated Software Solutions for your payments, please contact your partners or your terminal supplier.

Be aware, that the change concerns only Visa and Mastercard at the moment. All other major schemes like American Express, Diners Club/Discover, UnionPay, etc. have not yet announced timetables for implementing this change in the regulation, but it is expected to happen sooner or later.

Key facts at a glance:

Generally speaking, if you are not using any rules or processes based on BIN or card number, no action is required from your side.
On the contrary, if you have access to the card number or if you apply specific rules based on IINs, you should check if these rules are still working with the new 8-digit system.
If you use the MyCheckout hosted payment pages you are not affected by the change and are thus not required to do anything.
Solutions provided by Worldline will be fully compliant.

Q&A 8-digit BIN

What is the Bank Identification Number (BIN)?

The Bank Identification Numbers (BIN) uniquely identifies schemes, issuers and holds other payment information. Currently the BIN corresponds to the first 6 digits of the card number.

Because of the increasing demand of BIN by issuers, in April 2022 the length of the BIN will be extended from 6 to 8 digits, without a change of the general length of the card number/PAN - Primary Account Number (e.g. 16 and 19 digits for Visa and Mastercard in Europe).

What is changing?

For Visa and Mastercard, in April 2022 the length of the BIN will be extended from 6 to 8 digits.

By this time, Visa and Mastercard will reallocate the BINs between issuers step by step. Some will keep their complete 6-digits BIN extended to 8 digits, while others will get a slightly or completely new BIN.

What won’t change?

The general card number length will remain the same.
The PCI rules won’t change. Receipt requirements remain unchanged.
No new cards will need to be issued

What can be the consequences?

The use of the old 6-digit BIN could have negative consequences for merchants doing processing on BINs.

The BIN can be used for:

BIN blocking, fraud scoring, fraud prevention
Reporting
Identification of transactions in the context of disputes (chargebacks)
Loyalty programs
Information about the type of card (debit, credit, prepaid, commercial) or the currency in use
Identification of the card issuer (bank and country)

Actions to be taken by you as a merchant?

If you have processing tasks based on BINs, it is recommended to check their compatibility with the new 8-digit format.

If you use 3rd party acquirers, 3rd party PSPs or Integrated Software Solutions, please check with your provider it they are compliant with 8-digit BINs. Worldline has already started to update its products to recognise 8-digit BINs for a readiness in April 2022.

What is the influence on PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)?

The generic PCI regulations are not expected to change with the introduction of the 8-digit BIN.

Further questions?

For further questions regarding BIN customisation in relation to your payment solution at Worldline, please contact our customer service team: merchantservices@worldline.com

Important information

Due to the current sanctions, our offering in Russia is adjusted. Please reach out to your contact person at Worldline for more details.

Introduction

Russia is a market that can offer big opportunities: With a population of more than 145 million and an eCommerce market of over EUR 30 Billion with a 15% growth rate, it has the attention of many players. Although the numbers are impressive, the eCommerce market also will bring some challenges:

Cross border acquiring of cards often shows low authorization rate, while setting-up a local entity and process via domestic channels won't solve your issues around local VAT and the repatriation of collected funds;
The regulations in Russia require you to store consumer data locally;
The Ruble is a very volatile currency: The longer you wait to convert and repatriate, the higher the risk that fluctuations in the exchange rate lead to a loss in value;
As the preferred local card scheme, more and more cards are issued by MIR. In order to optimize your selection of available payment options MIR becomes a vital product.

How we can help you

Our solution for the Russian market will help you to address all of the challenges listed above. Many of our customers have already been benefitting from our partnerships with Russia's leading acquiring banks:

The solution doesn't require a local entity and will foresee in the repatriation of funds;
Your transactions will be processed locally and will be routed directly to the issuing banks, resulting in the highest possible authorization rate;
Our solution allows you to accept Visa, Mastercard, MIR card and more local payment methods;
We will collect the Ruble and convert it to your preferred currency of choice;
The solution is fully compliant with Russian regulations.

Getting started

Local acquiring

Our solution for local acquiring will work just like our standard integration for cross border transactions. You can consult our developer portal pages on Visa & Mastercard to find out more details about the integrations. Please don't forget to pay extra attention to the available card numbers for testing, we are providing specific cases to simulate a transaction from a Russian consumer.

During the onboarding process we will take care that the configuration in our systems is set-up in such a way that your transactions are routed to the right channels.

MIR Card

MIR card is a separate product and has a separate payment product ID on our platform. However, the concept of the integration of MIR is the same as for other card products. On the product page of MIR you can find more details about this payment product.

International payment methods available in Russia

Please note that we also offer a selection of international payment methods that are available for consumers in Russia. Explore here the overview of all payment products available in Russia, in order of prevalence.

Consumer experience

For consumers it is reassuring if they can pay in their own language. It increases their trust in the checkout page and makes it easier to fill in the details they need to provide for the payment product they choose.

In case you use the MyCheckout hosted payment pages, you can show it in Russian to consumers by adding the locale ru_RU to the create hosted checkout request as shown below:

{
    "order":
        "amountOfMoney": {
            "currencyCode": "RUB",
            "amount": 2345
        },
        "customer": {
            "billingAddress": {
                "countryCode": "RU"
            }
        }
    },
    "hostedCheckoutSpecificInput": {
        "variant": "testVariant",
        "locale": "ru_RB"
    }
}

If you want to change the texts shown to consumers, you can download the Excel-file from the configuration center and adjust the texts to your liking. They will appear on the MyCheckout hosted payment pages in case the Russian locale is used for the checkout. In case you use your own checkout page and would like to know which texts you can use, feel free to find the translations in the aforementioned Excel file.

Once you logged into the configuration center, follow these steps:

Go the submenu Merchant Settings - Hosted payment pages - Language packs
Scroll to Russian and click on download;
Adjust the column "value (editable)" if you want to change the text which is currently shown on the MyCheckout hosted payment pages;
In the column "default value for ru_RU" you find the original translation for the text provided by Ingenico;
In the column "default value for en_GB" you find the original English text to help you while translating and understanding the text;
Once you are done, click on actions and then upload new language pack.

Documentation

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Introduction of 8-digit BIN

By Marielena Viera, Product manager

Introduction

What will change for you?

What do you have to do?

Key facts at a glance:

Q&A 8-digit BIN

What is the Bank Identification Number (BIN)?

What is changing?

What won’t change?

What can be the consequences?

Actions to be taken by you as a merchant?

What is the influence on PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)?

Further questions?

Easy domestic processing for payments in Russia

By Melvin Schreijer, Product Manager

Important information

Introduction

How we can help you

Getting started

Local acquiring

International payment methods available in Russia

Consumer experience