We built this internally for our needs, then decided to give it out to any service that needs similar functionality. The first six cards of any card tells us some interesting information on the identity of the card, such as type (debit/credit), brand (amex, visa), country (US, ES, GA), and issuer bank (chase, wells), etc.
This would be of good use if you want to do things like, block international cards, charge less for debit cards, or generate more analytics about how you get paid.
We're giving it away for free for most practical purposes, up to 1,000 requests a day. If you want more, just shoot us an email, hany@ribbon.co