The disclosed embodiments facilitate converting binary values into the BCC format. One technique facilitates the direct conversion of binary numbers into BCC. A second variation first converts a binary number into an intermediate BCD value, and then converts that BCD value into a BCC value. Look-ahead comparators can further improve conversion performance by decreasing the latency of the conversion operation. By speeding up the conversion of binary values to decimal-format values, the disclosed techniques facilitate leveraging dedicated binary-format hardware for decimal-format operations, and thus improve the performance of decimal-format operations.