Barclaycard Initial Card Holders

berneslai

Hi,

I've just received my Barclaycard Initial Card (for building a credit rating) but I don't see any "Initial" branding on the card? Can someone tell me the prefix for the Initial card (i.e. 4929...) because I've got a funny feeling that I've just been sent a normal Barclaycard - not sure whether to own up or not

Pauls

As I understand it all VISA branded Barclaycards start 4929 & all Mastercard branded are 5301. It shouldn't make any difference what type of card it is.

berneslai

I was under the impression that different product types have different prefixes (e.g. 4929xxx.....). When I used to have a Barclays bank account the online banking system could identify product types by their prefixes, but I shut down my Barclays account and now I have nothing to cross reference against.

nads

The range of cards can be seen at: http://www.barclaycard.co.uk/Products/Apply/card_range.html

Most cards look the same and don't state "initial", "flexi", etc. all the pics show 4929 or 5401. Your APR rate may be a better indicator that it is the initial or ring Barclaycard who should be able to confirm the card.

tattooed_lady

It does look like a normal barclaycard and doesn't have anything about it being an initial card written on it. When your statement comes it will say Initial on that.

Pauls

Apologies folks, should've mentioned I've been working with Barclays data far longer than I care to remember!

rdcuk

It's coincidental that only Barclays use 4929. The actual number (called a BIN) is six digits, Barclays use 492900 thru 492999 - so in affect they use the whole range.

So, in Barclay's case the next two digits would are used for the product.. Eg: 4929 06
However, the product must only conform to one of Visa's set card types. As far as I'm aware, they are:
Classic, Gold, Platinum, Business, Electron, Purchasing.

The initial card would probably just be classed as a 'Classic' card, so there's probably no real way to tell by the BIN alone. As previously mentioned, the statement and APR will be the place to look.

As for MasterCard, it's not that easy to tell. Barclays has quite a few BINs, but not many are contiguous. EG: 5301 29 is Barclays and 5601 30 is Banco Bilbao in Spain.