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Earlier this week, Norbr launched #TheShot with Episode 1, starting where many payment journeys begin: the Bank Identification Number (BIN).

At a glance, BINs seem like a technicality, a backend routing mechanism that tells the ecosystem who issued the card. But in reality, they’re packed with commercial logic. From funding source to product type, regulatory rules to routing preferences, the BIN quietly shapes the transaction outcome long before the cardholder sees a confirmation screen.

What we explored in this episode was how much that logic has evolved.

BINs Aren’t Static, They’re Programmable

Historically, the 6-digit BIN gave issuers limited room to manoeuvre. One BIN might cover thousands of cards across various customer profiles and use cases. There was no clean way to separate virtual cards from plastic, commercial from consumer, or domestic from international at least not without layering additional logic.

That’s now changed.

With the move to 8-digit BINs, issuers suddenly have 100x the number of combinations to play with, unlocking a far more granular level of product configuration and portfolio management.

What Issuers Can Do With 8-Digit BINs

More digits means more control. Here’s how:

• Product Segmentation
  Issuers can now assign separate BINs to specific products — e.g. one for digital-only debit cards used inside wallets, another for traditional physical debit cards, and a third for premium credit cards with added insurance benefits.
• Targeted Launches and Testing
  Want to pilot a Gen Z prepaid product tied to a budgeting app? Assign it its own BIN, track performance, and shut it down or scale it up without touching your legacy portfolio.
• Risk and Compliance Modelling
  Products with higher fraud exposure (like tokenised cards for gig workers) can be monitored, managed, and risk-priced separately at the BIN level.
• Cleaner Data and Issuer Analytics
  More BINs = better reporting. Issuers can compare spend patterns, default rates, and channel usage between narrowly defined product lines.

But Here’s the Merchant Dilemma

That same flexibility adds friction on the merchant side.

When one issuer uses multiple BINs to serve multiple products and when those products can behave very differently, the old logic of “BIN = debit” or “BIN = prepaid” breaks down.

Merchants are left to decode what’s behind the card based on more dynamic, less predictable data.

• Routing Gets Complicated
  A merchant routing logic based on outdated BIN tables may misclassify an 8-digit debit BIN as credit, leading to incorrect routing, surcharge application, or even transaction declines.
• Fee Estimation Becomes Less Reliable
  Without visibility into whether a transaction is funded from a consumer debit vs a commercial prepaid product, merchants may see spikes in interchange they didn’t anticipate.
• Tokenisation Adds Another Layer
  Some 8-digit BINs may represent token-only card credentials. These might behave differently when passed through acquirers, particularly if PSPs aren’t fully updated on issuer capabilities or network token flags.
• BIN Tables Must Be Dynamic
  Static BIN files can’t keep up. Merchants need access to real-time, enriched BIN data, often provided by orchestration platforms or PSPs with network integrations, to avoid logic mismatches.

What This Means Strategically

This isn’t just about longer numbers. It’s about a shift in how payment attributes are structured, assigned, and interpreted, a shift that affects the full chain: from product design to interchange costs to merchant acceptance strategies.

The BIN is no longer just a technical identifier. It’s a signal-rich field of product intelligence and the ecosystem needs to treat it as such.

For merchants, that means:

• Partnering with PSPs or platforms that can decode BIN logic at scale
• Auditing their BIN-based logic and acceptance flows regularly
• Looking beyond just card type and layering in issuer, funding source, token status, and country profile for better transaction outcomes

Because in this new landscape, payments optimisation starts long before the transaction is authorised. It starts at the BIN.

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