PIN length

It is not so much that the pin number has letter in - it really doesn't. The pin pads in the US have letters and number similar to the telephone pad. Some people use letters that are actually a substitute for the numbers because it is easier to remember Carl than 2275. Since you do not have letters on the European pin pads you need the know the numbers of your PIN instead of letter IF that is what you have been using. PINs in the US do not come with letters but some pin are now five digits long. And you may run across the "advice" that the PIN should not start with a zero. That was true about 30 years in the very beginning when the zero served a different function for ATMs. That was corrected about 29 years ago and a zero is fine in the first digit position.

I think Frank's explanation is fine. I've always had a four digit PIN - never used letters as a memory aid - and never had a problem.

I just opened a new account in Texas which required a 6 digit PIN.

What do you expect? It is Texas. Always a little out of step.

BoA prompted us to pick a 5 number PIN aces years back . We changed it back to 4 later.

I've had a 6 digit PIN on my ATM card for years and never had any troubles at French ATMs. The only problem I ever had was years ago in England when I had memorized my PIN by letters but the keyboard was all numbers and I wasn't able to correlate it.

Thanks for the information. Now I can stop wondering!

Hi, I see it varies, but just going to add that here in Ontario, Canada, we have 4 digits for both pins debit/credit.

Everything's big in Texas, even the PINs are 50 percent bigger.