Ok, so what do all those numbers on your credit cards mean – besides identifying you alone as the holder of that card. The numbers do stand for something and its is actually simple to explain.
We can only address the major national companies – AMEX, VISA, MasterCard, Discover, etc. The department stores and gas companies have their own system since you will only be using those cards at the companies’ own locations.
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 = American Express or Diners Club. 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″. The remaining numbers in the series are used for different purposes depending upon the card type and issuer.
4 = Visa and Visa-branded debit cards, cash cards, etc.
5 = MasterCard and MasterCard-branded debit cards, cash cards, etc.
6 = Discover
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. This confirms the previous digits by using a specific formula (add, multiply, etc.) This check digit is the result of that formula and is used as an anti-fraud check or merely to be sure the number was written correctly for phone orders and such.
Pull out one of your cards and let’s go through the numbers together..
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 card holder’s account.
Now you have this great knowledge and how can you use it – dazzle your friends!!!
