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Most of these "branded" cards will have an underlying issuing bank/acquirer, not their own identification on the card. The way that the 16 digits are allocated
by rswail 6y ago
Most of these "branded" cards will have an underlying issuing bank/acquirer, not their own identification on the card.
The way that the 16 digits are allocated is defined as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number#Structure
So of the 16 digits for the majority of cards:
Digit 1-6(8): Scheme and issuer identification
Digits 7-15: Account identification
Digit 16: Check digit (Luhn algorithm)
So most issuers have 10 digits to "play with" to identify the account.
So Japan is either running out of issuer identifiers, which sounds excessive, or they have been allocating them badly.
- lmm 6y agoSure, but if I have 8 different cards issued by SMBC then that's still 8 cards.
- rtpg 6y agoSeconding this. I have multiple cards by SMCC, some basically given to me. There's also a lot of "virtual credit card" offerings right now to pair with peer-to-peer payment apps. I imagine that those need to get cycled through frequently. 8 is not an exageration.