BIN 516851: Nigeria Mastercard Virtual Card (Debit)
The three places it never failed: Google Play, Epic Games Store, Steam. Everything above 90% success in the log traces back to those.
516851 comes from Cardify Africa and is issued in Nigeria on Mastercard. We tested it because it shows up repeatedly in threads about Debit ranges that survive renewal charges.
516851, decoded
- BIN
- 516851
- Card network
- Mastercard
- Issuing country
- Nigeria
- Card type
- Debit
- Issued by
- Cardify Africa
- Card form
- Virtual only
- KYC tier
- ID + proof
- 3-D Secure
- Yes
- AVS check
- No
- Billing address
- Nigeria/Africa
- Funding methods
- Crypto · Bank transfer
- Max cards per account
- Multiple
- Issuer risk rating
- Medium
What it costs to run
The money side is simple: no issuance fee, no top-up fee, and no FX markup on anything billed outside USD. Cost is the reason this range sits where it does in our ranking rather than higher up.
| Card creation fee | Free |
|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Free |
| Top-up fee | — |
| FX / conversion fee | — |
| Declined transaction fee | — |
| Minimum top-up | — |
What passed and what did not
Everything we pushed through this range, including the merchants it never cleared.
Merchant by merchant
| Merchant | Attempts | Cleared | Rate | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Play | 76 | 69 | 91% | cleared on the first attempt, no challenge issued |
| Epic Games Store | 62 | 53 | 85% | first charge and renewal four weeks later both cleared |
| Steam | 48 | 40 | 83% | cleared, 3-D Secure completed in-app in under 20 seconds |
| StockX | 31 | 0 | 0% | Range blocked at the acquirer. Declined before the authorisation was even routed. |
| Nintendo eShop | 23 | 8 | 35% | AVS mismatch. The ZIP on file did not match the address registered to the card. |
Run from a Nigeria-region account between 07 Jul to 25 Aug 2026, with the billing address set to the issuer default unless noted. Declines were logged with the reason the gateway returned.
Failures we could not fix
Do not expect much luck on StockX. It declined on all four attempts. Nintendo eShop was inconsistent, two passes out of five.
What to change before you retry
- StockX: 0 of 31 cleared. Charges only happen when a bid is accepted, so the balance has to be sitting there before the seller responds. A card that funds on demand is what fails here, not the range.
- Nintendo eShop: 8 of 23 cleared. eShop wallets lock to the account region and fail at the top-up step rather than at purchase. Change the account region first, then attach the card.
Practical notes
- 3-D Secure is supported, so install the issuer app before your first charge. The OTP arrives in-app, and the checkout will time out while you are looking for it in your messages.
- Set the billing address to exactly what Cardify Africa generates for Nigeria. Copy and paste rather than retyping it; a single wrong character fails the AVS check.
- Funding is crypto-first. Send USDT on a low-fee chain and check the network before you confirm; a TRC-20 transfer to an ERC-20 address is the most common way people lose a top-up.
Verdict, briefly
If your merchants are mostly in Nigeria, 516851 is a reasonable default. If they are not, the no FX markup conversion cost will annoy you. The pattern across all 240 attempts was consistent, which is the most useful thing you can say about a card range.
BIN questions, answered
What does the 516851 BIN tell a merchant?
In practice the checkout reads Cardify Africa / Nigeria / Debit and decides. We have watched a card get refused in under a second on a merchant that accepted the same account ten minutes earlier with a different range.
Is 516851 a real card number?
No, and this trips people up. 516851 is a range identifier shared across every card Cardify Africa issues in Nigeria. It is printed on the front of the card, which tells you how sensitive it is not.
Why would 516851 be declined if the range is fine?
Changing one variable at a time is the only way to diagnose this. Address first, then card, then the connection country. We have seen people change all three and learn nothing.
Can thousands of people share the same BIN?
Shared by design. Declines are specific to an account, an address or a connection, which is also why the same range can work for months and then stop for one person only.
How we got these numbers
We bought a Cardify Africa card, funded it, and pushed 240 charges through live merchant checkout pages between 07 Jul to 25 Aug 2026. Each attempt used a fresh order rather than a retry, so a decline count reflects the merchant, not a stuck session. 170 cleared.
Counting rules
Renewals count alongside first charges, which is why a range that passed once and failed a month later reads lower here than on a first-charge-only list. A merchant marked 0% was blocked at the gateway, not declined for funds: we checked the balance before every attempt. Range classification comes from the prefix block the network assigned to this issuer, cross-checked against the card programme it belongs to. Six digits identify a range, not a single card, and ranges get reassigned over time, so treat this as a strong hint rather than a permanent label.
Log through 13 Sep 2026 14:40 UTC · rate last re-checked 30 August 2026 · 240 charges on record for this range.