In this day and age of e-commerce, online shopping and credit card transactions are much more commonplace than ever before. And why wouldn’t they be? It is so convenient to buy things online. You don’t have to endure a grueling drive or deal with traffic. You can browse at your leisure and even read reviews before buying something.
However, as with all good things, some bad must also be present. Bad actors found out that there are many ways to engage in credit card fraud over the web. They found ways to steal credit card details from unsuspecting people and use their money for themselves.
This is why credit card companies and e-commerce stores had to beef up their security to catch these frauds and nip them in the bud. One of the measures they came up with was BIN lookups. Let’s see what that is and how it can prevent credit card fraud.
BIN Numbers and Their Role In Credit Card Transactions
A credit card’s number provides a lot of different information. The 15 to 16-digit numbers are divided into different parts, and each part provides a unique piece of information.
What is a BIN Number
BIN stands for Bank Identification Number. It refers to the first 6 or 8 digits of a credit/debit card.
These numbers provide some crucial information, such as the following.
- The card brand. I.e., Visa, Mastercard, American Express, etc.
- The card level. I.e., Silver, Gold, Diamond, Platinum.
- The card type. I.e., Debit or Credit.
- Country of the bank that issued the card.
- Name of the cardholder’s bank.
This information is used during transactions to ensure that a legitimate card is being used.
What Is A BIN Lookup
A BIN lookup is the process of checking the BIN number of a card and finding out the issuing bank, country, card type, card level, and card brand.
BIN lookups can be easily done by using an online BIN Checker. A BIN Checker is a tool where you enter the BIN number and retrieve the relevant information about the credit card.
How Do BIN Lookups Identify Fraudulent Transactions
BIN lookups are done before a transaction is done to check if the card is legitimate or not. It is one of many steps used to ensure that no fraudulent transactions occur.
BIN lookups are particularly powerful because they can single-handedly stop fake credit cards from being used. Before BIN checking was a thing, people tried to fool online transaction systems with fake cards and were successful quite often.
With BIN lookups, that is no longer possible. Only real cards can work in a transaction. Of course, this does not prevent the use of stolen credit cards, but there are other security measures to prevent that.
How Are BIN Lookups Integrated in Modern Payment Systems?
In modern payment systems, BIN checkers are integrated such that they can check any credit card number in real time. You may have noticed this yourself when you tried to conduct a transaction and accidentally missed a number or two from your credit card number. The web page instantly says that the CC number is invalid.
This happens due to the integration of BIN checkers in payment systems. Integrating a BIN lookup tool into a payment system is typically easy. Developers often use APIs of BIN checkers to conduct BIN lookups in their payment systems.
They can also go the hard route and pull a database and create a manual BIN lookup tool in their payment system. However, that takes time and is prone to errors, plus you have to keep updating the database frequently.
Conclusion
So, that was all on BIN checkers. We discussed what a BIN is, what BIN checkers do, and, most importantly, how they prevent fraud. We learned that BIN numbers can provide a ton of information about a credit card, and that info can be used to verify its legitimacy. As a result, payment systems can use BIN lookups to identify fake and real cards and stop fraud attempts easily.
