diff --git a/src/main/java/com/solab/iso8583/util/Bcd.java b/src/main/java/com/solab/iso8583/util/Bcd.java
index b0103cc..a9c2cc1 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/solab/iso8583/util/Bcd.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/solab/iso8583/util/Bcd.java
@@ -71,6 +71,30 @@ public final class Bcd {
         }
     }
 
+    /** Encode the value as BCD and put it in the buffer. The buffer must be big enough
+   	 * to store the digits in the original value (half the length of the string).
+     * If the value contains an odd number of digits, the last one is stored in
+     * its own byte at the end, padded with an F nibble. */
+    public static void encodeRightPadded(String value, byte[] buf) {
+        int bufpos = 0;
+        int charpos = 0;
+        int limit = value.length();
+        if (limit % 2 == 1) {
+            limit--;
+        }
+        //encode the rest of the string
+        while (charpos < limit) {
+            buf[bufpos] = (byte)(((value.charAt(charpos) - 48) << 4)
+                | (value.charAt(charpos + 1) - 48));
+            charpos += 2;
+            bufpos++;
+        }
+        if (value.length() % 2 == 1) {
+            buf[bufpos] = (byte)(((value.charAt(limit) - 48) << 4)
+                | 0xf);
+        }
+    }
+
     /** Decodes a BCD-encoded number as a BigInteger.
      * @param buf The byte buffer containing the BCD data.
      * @param pos The starting position in the buffer.