MasterCard Releases Series 2.

In January of this year MasterCard Brand announced they had run out of card numbers. To resolve the issue, they added a new Bin Series starting with a “2”. They had advised merchants that accept MasterCard to insure their Payment System is ready to accept the new cards by June 2017.

Are You Ready For Series 2..

You may be thinking MasterCard adding a new “2” series card does not affect me. Well, it might affect you more than you think. If you are a merchants who has a newer stand-alone Payment Terminal, you are probably fine. Merchants that have integrated credit card processing with their POS system might have an issue. Many Point of Sale programs need to be updated in order to accept series 2 cards. Again, for merchants who have kept their POS Systems current, this might be a no or low cost system update. For those that have not updated their POS in some time, the cost will be more substantial as to a current version of software will be needed, which may have its own requirements that may include hardware replacement, an updated License, and installation labor.

Fees & Penalties for non-compliance with MasterCard Bin 2 Series…

• Mastercard transactions for cards beginning with a 2 will be declined when ran. Not being able to accept these new 2 series cards could potential cost you money and customers.
• If your software is not updated before the deadline, you will fall into a status of non-compliance. Non-compliant is defined as any attempted and failed transaction that is confirmed as failed due to a merchant’s lack of readiness to support 2-Series BIN cards.
  • $2,500 per occurrence in the first 30 days.
  • Escalating up to $10,000 in the next 60 days.
  • Up to $20,000 per occurrence for the subsequent violations.