canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/bintable.com/bintable

# Bintable BIN Lookup API

Bintable's BIN Lookup API resolves the first 6 to 8 digits of a payment card (the Bank Identification Number) into the issuing bank, card scheme, card type, country, and prepaid flag. The service maintains a community-curated and third-party-augmented database of BIN entries that an integrator can call before authorising a transaction or routing a payment. The API exposes two endpoints: one to look up a BIN and one to retrieve the remaining quota balance on an account. Responses are JSON and the lookup latency is sub-second for cached entries.

## For AI agents

Look up the issuer, scheme, and country of a payment card from its BIN (first 6-8 digits) and check the remaining query balance on the account.

## Scope

Does not authorise transactions, store cardholder data, or perform 3D Secure - use for issuer identification from a BIN only.

## Capabilities

- Resolve a 6-8 digit BIN into issuer bank name, card scheme (Visa, Mastercard, Amex), card type (debit, credit, prepaid), and issuing country
- Verify whether a card BIN belongs to a prepaid product before authorising a recurring charge
- Retrieve the remaining query balance on the Bintable account to forecast monthly usage
- Augment fraud-screening rules with country-of-issue data pulled from the BIN response
- Route checkout flows by card scheme using the scheme field returned by /{bin}

## Use cases

### Pre-authorisation BIN screening

Merchants screen card prefixes before sending an authorisation to their PSP to block prepaid or specific-country cards on high-risk products. The /{bin} endpoint returns the issuer bank, scheme, type, and country in a single round trip, letting a checkout service add a synchronous decision step without changing its core payment flow. Latency on cached BINs is typically under 200 ms, so the additional check is invisible to the buyer.

Example prompt: Call GET /414720 and return bank name, scheme, type, and country to the checkout decision engine

### Fraud-screening enrichment

Risk teams enrich each transaction record with the BIN-derived issuing country to detect mismatches against the buyer's IP geolocation or shipping address. Bintable's lookup returns a country ISO code that maps cleanly into common fraud-rule engines. The /balance endpoint lets the same team monitor remaining quota so a screening pipeline never silently fails on quota exhaustion.

Example prompt: For each new transaction, call /{bin} with the leading 6 digits, attach country and scheme to the fraud event, and alert when /balance drops below 1000

### Agent integration via Jentic for card data lookup

An AI agent processing a user's checkout request can resolve a card BIN through Jentic by issuing the natural-language query 'look up bank issuer from card BIN'. Jentic returns the Bintable /{bin} operation with its input schema (a single path parameter) and response schema (issuer, scheme, type, country, prepaid flag). The agent never sees the raw API key - Jentic injects it from the encrypted vault.

Example prompt: Search Jentic for 'bank issuer from card bin', load the Bintable lookup schema, execute against BIN 414720, and return the issuer name

## Key endpoints

| Method | Path | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GET | `/{bin}` | Look up issuer details for a 6-8 digit BIN |
| GET | `/balance` | Return the remaining BIN-lookup quota for the account |

## Key resources

- **Lookup** — Resolve a BIN into issuer, scheme, type, country, and prepaid flag
- **Balance** — Return the remaining query allowance on the Bintable account

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring the BIN Lookup API by hand means adding your API key as a query parameter, targeting the api.bintable.com/v1 host, and handling errors around issuer lookups yourself. Through Jentic you install once, import BIN Lookup from the API Directory, store the key once, and your agent calls it.
- **Permission scoping:** The BIN Lookup spec is read-only, with the BIN as a path lookup (/{bin}) and a balance check, so limit the agent to the operations it needs, such as issuer identification from a BIN. You choose the operations it may call, so nothing beyond those lookups runs unless you add it.
- **Credential handling:** Your Bintable API key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected as the query parameter at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'bank issuer from a card BIN' or 'card country detection', and Jentic returns the Bintable /{bin} operation with its input and response schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related APIs

- **NeutrinoAPI** — General-purpose data API including BIN lookup, IP geolocation, and email verification.
- **APILayer** — API marketplace that hosts several BIN lookup providers behind a unified key.
- **RapidAPI** — Marketplace listing competing BIN-lookup services with consolidated billing.

## FAQ

### What authentication does the Bintable BIN Lookup API use?

Bintable issues an API key that is appended as a query parameter on every request. Through Jentic the key is held encrypted in the vault and injected at call time, so the agent context never contains the raw secret.

### Can I detect prepaid cards with the Bintable BIN Lookup API?

Yes. The /{bin} response includes a prepaid boolean field alongside the issuer bank name, card scheme, and country. Pass the leading 6 digits of the card number to the path and read response.data.prepaid.

### What are the rate limits for the Bintable BIN Lookup API?

Bintable enforces a per-account daily quota rather than a per-second rate limit. Call GET /balance to read the remaining allowance for your key - the response returns a numeric balance you can poll on a schedule and alert on.

### How do I look up a card issuer through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'look up bank issuer from card BIN', load the Bintable /{bin} operation schema, then execute with the 6-digit BIN as the path parameter. The standard pip install jentic flow plus an asyncio search-load-execute call returns the issuer in one round trip.

### Is the Bintable BIN Lookup API free?

Bintable offers a free tier with a daily quota plus paid plans for higher volumes. Use the /balance endpoint to monitor remaining queries on the active key - when balance is exhausted the /{bin} endpoint returns an error.

### How fresh is the BIN database the API queries?

Bintable maintains the database from community submissions and third-party feeds. Newly issued BINs typically appear within days. For mission-critical fraud rules, treat unknown-BIN responses as a soft signal rather than a hard reject.

### Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the BIN Lookup API?

Yes. Because you run Jentic One yourself, you decide which operations your agent may call, and the BIN Lookup API is read-only anyway, exposing only a BIN lookup at /{bin} and a quota check at /balance. You can scope the agent to just issuer identification from a BIN and leave out the balance check, so nothing beyond the lookups you approve ever runs. Your Bintable API key is held encrypted by your own instance and injected at call time, so it never enters the agent's prompt or logs.