by having the BIN search on the first six digits
It designates category of the entity issuing a payment card:
It identifies the institution that issued the card
So all cards; regardless of credit, debit, charge or prepaid; can be looked up by their BIN (also called IIN). A card starts with 553385 is an Australia And New Zealand Banking Group LTD MasterCard (MC) Corporate Card. 627794 designates an ICICI Bank of Canada MasterCard (MC) Icard level Card.
With the range from 9 to 12 digits, this number range represents unique IDs up to for trillions of people. As such, when someone gets a new credit card, the number from the 7th position to before the last uniquely identifies him/her only.
This card digit is solely used for validating the whole number using the Luhn formula. The formula is also called the "mod 10" formula. For a long time, It has been really good and quick for ID number validation in a variety of ID applications; such as credit card numbers, US National Provider ID numbers, Social numbers, etc. Wiki for more detail.
Made by Tommy Lancaster using BIN Checker APIs