> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://razorpay-60c89f9a-mintlify-audit-missing-sections-1778528421.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Card Fingerprints (or PAR) API

> Retrieve card fingerprints for cards and tokens.

<Info>
  **Feature Request**
</Info>

This is an on-demand feature. Please raise a request with our [Support team](https://razorpay.com/support/#request) to get this feature activated on your Razorpay account.

to get this feature activated on your account.

Razorpay works with card networks to return a unique card fingerprint for each card and all tokens created against that card.

This value is unique across the payment ecosystem. It means this fingerprint will act as a global identifier and will not change while processing payments.

You can use the Card Fingerprints API to retrieve:

* **Payment Account Reference** for Mastercard and Visa cards.
* **Network Reference id** for non-tokenised RuPay cards.

## What is Payment Account Reference

Payment Account Reference (PAR) is a 29-character identifier associated with a specific card. It is independent of Razorpay and is provided by card networks and card-issuing banks.

## What is Network Reference ID

Card networks need issuing banks' support to generate PAR value. However, RuPay currently has very low coverage on PAR value and needs to work with a large number of banks to increase the coverage. To overcome this challenge they have introduced - network reference id.
It works in the same way as the PAR value and is 36-character long. The token create API call returns the Network Reference id.

Razorpay returns both **network reference id** as well as **PAR** value wherever available for RuPay Cards.

## Use cases

This API is helpful for card identification in various situations:

* Restricting the number of times an offer is availed on the card.
* Applying risk checks as to how many times a card is used or if it is associated with fraud users.
* Block existing and newly blacklisted cards.

## List of Endpoints

<Info>
  **Handy Tips**
</Info>

You can initiate a request for a card reference number using the following:

* Card number
* Tokenised card number
* Razorpay token

## API Endpoint | Description

## [Fetch Card Reference Number Using Card Number](/api/payments/cards/fingerprints/fetch-card-number) | Fetches the card reference number for a specific card using card number.

## [Fetch Card Reference Number Using Tokenised Card Number](/api/payments/cards/fingerprints/fetch-tokenised-number) | Fetches the card reference number for a specific card using tokenised card number.

[Fetch Card Reference Number Using Razorpay Token](/api/payments/cards/fingerprints/fetch-razorpay-token) | Fetches the card reference number for a specific card using Razorpay Token.

## Card Fingerprint Entity

`network`
: `string` The card network. Possible values:

* `Mastercard`
* `RuPay`
* `Visa`

`payment_account_reference`
: `string` The 29-character unique identifier for Mastercard and Visa cards. For RuPay cards, the value is `null`.

`network_reference_id`
: `string` The unique identifier generated for RuPay cards.

```json: Sample Entity theme={null}
{
  "network": "Visa",
  "payment_account_reference": "V0010013819231376539033235990",
  "network_reference_id": null
}
```

`network`
: `string` The card network. Possible values:

* `Mastercard`
* `RuPay`
* `Visa`

`payment_account_reference`
: `string` The 29-character unique identifier for Mastercard and Visa cards. For RuPay cards, the value is `null`.

`network_reference_id`
: `string` The unique identifier generated for RuPay cards.