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Credit Card Numbers
and What They Mean
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Have
you ever really looked at your credit card and tried to
figure out what that huge string of numbers really means? Do
these card issuers have so many customers that your account
number has to be 16 digits long?
You may be surprised to know that all those numbers you see
actually do stand for something, and it's not just who YOU
are. Let's take a look.
Most of the major credit card companies operate on the same
system when choosing a credit card number. Other cards like
gas cards, department store cards and phone cards go their
own way. Let's concentrate on the ones that all play by the
same rules.
The very first digit in the series will be a 3,4,5, 0r 6.
This number designates the type of card as follows:
3 = a Travel & Entertainment Card like American Express or
Diners Club.
4 = Visa and Visa-branded debit cards, cash cards, etc.
5 = MasterCard and MasterCard-branded debit cards, cash
cards, etc.
6 = Discover
American Express and Diners Club use the second digit to
identify the company. That means that Diners Club cards will
start with either "36" or "38", and American Express cards
will use either "34" or "37".
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Credit Card Information
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»Types
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»Various
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»What
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»Credit
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Date
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»Protecting
Your Business From Fraud |
The remaining numbers in the
series are used for different purposes depending upon the
card type and issuer.
In most cases, the next group after the opening series of
numbers represents the routing number of the card-issuing
bank, the group after that is the user's account number, and
the final digit is a check digit. The check digit is a
number that is calculated by applying a special formula to
all of the other numbers. The check digit is the result of
that formula and is used as an anti-fraud check.
To keep things from getting too confusing, look at your card
as you follow along for the next steps.
American Express
The American Express Card uses digits three and four for
type (business or personal) and the currency of the
cardholder's country of origin. The next digits from the
fifth through the eleventh are account numbers. Digits
twelve through fourteen indicate the card number within the
account and the last digit is the check digit.
Visa
With Visa, digits two through six represent the bank number.
Beginning with the seventh digit and running through the
twelfth or the fifteenth represents the account number and
the last number is the check digit. Since all Visa cards do
not have the same amount of numbers in the sequence, the
number of digits in a group may vary.
MasterCard
For MasterCard, the second digit, through to anywhere
between the third and the sixth digit is the bank number.
All remaining digits, except the check digit at the end of
the series, identifies that cardholder's account.
Now that we've gone over it all, you're probably wondering
why you were ever wondering in the first place. Just
remember though, knowledge is power. Some things are just
fun to know.♦
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