Knowing the story behind every card can transform how you handle payments. With PCI Proxy’s BIN Lookup API, you get that story instantly.

Our standalone BIN Lookup API works seamlessly alongside your existing systems, giving you the card-level insights you need to reduce costs, improve approval rates, and strengthen fraud defenses — no infrastructure changes required.

What is a BIN?

A Bank Identification Number (BIN) – also known as an Issuer Identification Number (IIN) – comprises the first 6 to 8 digits of a credit or debit card. This number identifies the card-issuing institution and provides important metadata about the card, including:

• Brand
• Type
• Usage
• Country
• Issuer
• Co-brand
• Account type
• BIN length

With the shift from 6-digit to 8-digit BINs, payments teams now have more granular, accurate data for decision-making across the transaction lifecycle.

Why Payments Teams Should Care About BIN Lookups

Having a standalone BIN lookup tool means you can add valuable data points to your decision-making without needing to re-architect your payment stack. This flexibility allows you to act on card-level insights before a transaction is even processed.

Industry examples where BIN checks make a difference:

• Airlines and surcharging: Many airlines adjust surcharges depending on the type of card or the issuing country. BIN checks allow these surcharges to be applied instantly and accurately, avoiding manual reviews and ensuring compliance with local fee regulations.
• ‍Global merchants and currency presentation: For cross-border merchants, IP-based geolocation is often unreliable due to VPNs or mobile networks. BIN data provides the issuing country directly from the card itself, allowing for accurate currency and language display at checkout.
• Payment orchestration platforms: PSPs and orchestration providers rely on BIN data to make intelligent routing decisions — for example, sending EU-issued cards to one acquirer and APAC-issued cards to another to maximize approval rates and reduce processing costs.
• ‍Merchants with in-house routing: Large merchants running their own routing logic can use BIN data to enrich transaction decisioning. This might mean selecting the most cost-effective acquirer for a specific card type or rerouting transactions that are less likely to be approved by a certain provider.

Key Benefits in a Nutshell

• Detect card type and issuing country in milliseconds
• Enable accurate surcharging rules or promotions based on card attributes
• Improve conversion rates by routing to the most appropriate acquirer
• Present the right currency and payment options without relying solely on IP location
• Apply tailored fraud checks by identifying prepaid, debit, or high-risk regional cards

Ready to Try It?

You can now plug BIN Lookups into your workflow as a completely standalone API. It delivers accurate, real-time card metadata that can be used to improve revenue, reduce costs, and create a more relevant customer experience — all without overhauling your current payment stack.

Learn more: Documentation

‍