ISO/IEC 7812 ''Identification cards – Identification of issuers'' is an international standard published jointly by the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

(ISO) and the

International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; ) is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronics, electronic and related technologies. IEC standards cover a va ...

(IEC). It specifies "a numbering system for the identification of the card issuers, the format of the issuer identification number (IIN) and the primary account number (PAN)", and procedures for registering IINs. It was first published in 1989. ISO/IEC 7812 has two parts: * ''Part 1: Numbering system'' * ''Part 2: Application and registration procedures'' The

registration authority Registration authorities (RAs) exist for many standards organizations, such as ISO, the Object Management Group, W3C, and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar function, in promoting the use of a particular standard ...

for Issuer Identification Numbers (IINs) is the American Bankers Association. An IIN is currently six digits in length. The leading digit is the ''major industry identifier'' (MII), followed by 5 digits, which together make up the IIN. This IIN is paired with an ''individual account identification'' number, and a single digit

checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify dat ...

. In 2015, ISO TC68/SC9 began work on implementing a change to ISO/IEC 7812 to increase the length of the IIN to 8 digits. The 2017 revision of the standard, since updated by the 2022 systematic review, defined the new eight-digit IIN and outlined a timeline for conversion of existing six digits IINs to eight-digit IINs. In February 2024, CUSIP Global Services, the US National Number Agency for securities identifiers, assumed administrative responsibility for 7812 on behalf of the ABA.

Major industry identifier

The first (leading) digit of the IIN identifies the major industry of the card issuer. ISO 7812-1 (section 4.2) makes note of some special ranges that do not follow the general 6/8 digit IIN scheme: Card numbers starting with "80" or "9" are followed by the three-digit numeric-3 country code from

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country code'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It i ...

, shown as CCC above. Digits after these prefixes are managed by ISO-member national standards bodies.

Issuer identifier number

The first six or eight digits, including the major industry identifier, compose the '' issuer identifier number'' (IIN) which identifies the issuing organization. The IIN is sometimes referred to as a "bank identification number" (BIN). The IIN's use is much broader than identification of a bank. IINs are used by companies other than banks.

IIN Register

The official "ISO Register of Issuer Identification Numbers", is not available to the general public. It is only available to institutions who hold IINs published in the register, financial networks and processors. Institutions are required to sign a licensing agreement before they are given access to the register. Several IINs are well known, especially those representing credit card issuers.

Individual account identification

In conjunction with the IIN, card issuers assign an account number to a card holder. The account number is variable in length with a maximum of 12 digits when used in conjunction with a six digit IIN. When using an eight digit IIN, the maximum total length of the primary account number (PAN) remains at 19 digits. The PAN comprises the IIN, the individual account identifier, and the

check digit A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for Error detection and correction, error detection on identification numbers, such as bank account numbers, which are used in an application where they will at least sometimes be input manually. It ...

, so when using an eight digit IIN, the maximum length of an individual account identifier would only be 10 digits.

Check digit

The final digit is a

which is calculated using the

Luhn algorithm The Luhn algorithm or Luhn formula (creator: IBM scientist Hans Peter Luhn), also known as the " modulus 10" or "mod 10" algorithm, is a simple check digit formula used to validate a variety of identification numbers. The algorithm is in the pub ...

, defined in Annex B of ISO/IEC 7812-1.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:ISO IEC 7812 American Bankers Association Identifiers #07812