Ever wonder what the numbers on a credit card mean? Well, here it is:
Credit cards usually consist of 16 digits. xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx
The first digit is the Major Industry Identifier.
- 1 and 2 are airlines
- 3 is travel and entertainment
- 4 and 5 are banking and financial
- 6 is merchandising and banking
- 7 is petroleum
- 9 is National Assignment
8 is telecommunications, and
The first 6 digits are the issuer identification number. Cards can be looked up by this number. For example —
- 4xxxxx is Visa
- 51xxxx through 55xxxx is Mastercard
The 7th and following digits except the last digit are the person’s account number. The final digit is a checksum. It is used to validate the card number using an algorithm.
