Reserved — National / Private (Advice/POS Data)
What it is
Reserved field; ISO 8583:1987 sources differ on its class — jPOS (ISO87 packagers) lists DE 60 as reserved private, others (e.g. pyiso8583) as reserved national. Networks assign it: commonly advice reason codes, batch/original data, or extended POS capability data.
In practice DE 60 is heavily used: Mastercard carries the advice reason code here; many acquirer hosts put batch number, original amount, or terminal capability extensions in it. Like the other reserved national and private DEs (57–63, 112–127), its layout is defined by the specific interface specification, not by ISO.
DE 60 on the wire
Bitmap position
DE 60 is bit 60 of the primary bitmap: byte 8, mask 0x10. A primary bitmap with only DE 60 present reads 0000000000000010 in hex.
Length
DE 60 is variable length (LLLVAR): a 3-digit prefix gives the length of the value in characters, from 0 to 999. A 12-character value is sent as 012 followed by the value. In ASCII the prefix is the bytes 30 31 32; dialects that pack lengths as BCD send 00 12 instead.
Size in the message
At most 1002 bytes when the message travels as text (ASCII or EBCDIC), or 1001 bytes in binary dialects that pack the length prefix as BCD.
Format ans
Format ans means alphanumeric and special: letters, digits, space and punctuation.
Specification reference
Defined in ISO 8583:1987 (base). Card networks publish their own dialect tables (Visa BASE I / V.I.P., Mastercard CIS) that refine formats, lengths, and — for private-use elements — the entire layout. Always confirm against the interface specification you implement.