IsracardA card brand that was historically purely domestic (not accepted outside Israel without co-badging) and is also an issuer and an acquirer. An oddity of the Israeli market that online merchants must handle explicitly.Isracard Ltd
Global registry · Africa & Middle East · West Asia
Israel Payment systems
6 systems listed.
CurrencyIsraeli shekel (ILS)
RegulatorBank of Israel
Leading payment methods
Credit cardsBit (P2P)WalletsCredit transfer
E-commerce shares
Cards · 65%Wallets · 20%Account-to-account · 8%Other · 7%
Bit. Bank Hapoalim's P2P app, now the national standard for person-to-person transfers and extended to merchant payments. A local quirk: card installment plans (tashlumim) are offered by default almost everywhere.
Bit usersOver 6M (2025)
Online credit card≈65% of e-commerce
A dense fintech ecosystem: Rapyd, Payoneer, and Melio were all founded in Israel. The move from magnetic stripe to EMV is recent, and late compared with Europe.
IBAN · Israel
23 characters1 bank code79 BIC codes
- Total length
- 23 characters
- Bank code position
- 5–7
- Branch code position
- 8–10
- BBAN structure
3!n3!n13!n
Structurally valid example
ILcountry code62check digits010bank800branch0000099999999account
IL62 0108 0000 0009 9999 999
Learn about this market. The guides and courses that cover it.
Payments in IsraelPayments in East AfricaPayments in Portuguese-speaking and southern AfricaMobile money in AfricaPayments in West and Southern AfricaPayments in the CEMAC zoneAccepting payments in AfricaAccepting payments in Egypt and the MaghrebAccepting payments in the GulfCollecting payments in Kenya and East AfricaCollecting payments in Nigeria and West AfricaPayments in Africa: the continent that reinvented mobile money
Card schemes
Shva (Automated Bank Services / ABS)Single switch linking Israel’s POS terminals, gateways, and card companies. It is a single point of failure for card payments in Israel, as the 2025 incident showed. Its terminal protocol (Ashrait) is the local integration standard.Shva · Automated Bank Services Ltd
Instant payments
ZahavIsrael’s RTGS and the only venue for final settlement in central bank money. It connects with banks and clearing houses via SWIFT and the IBAN.Bank of Israel · since 2007
Clearing and settlement
MasavMasav combines Israel’s long-standing ACH and its instant payment rail. There is no separate consumer brand, which confuses foreign integrators.Banks' Clearing Center (Masav) (owned by the banks, overseen by the Bank of Israel) · since 1970Instant payments settle in 5 to 7 seconds, 24/7; ISO 20022 migration and extension to merchant, government, and Request-to-Pay use cases under way (Bank of Israel, 2025).
Wallets
BitIsrael’s dominant P2P app, authorized by the Bank of Israel to become a wallet open to customers of all banks and to issue a chip (ICC) card. It marks a shift from a captive bank service to shared industry infrastructure.Bank Hapoalim · since 2017
Central bank digital currency
Digital shekelPilotOne of the most publicly documented retail CBDC projects, with a two-tier model that admits nonbank intermediaries. The political decision is still open.Bank of IsraelPreliminary system design published in March 2025; no issuance decision has been made (Bank of Israel, March 2025).