A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called a magstripe, is read by physical contact and swiping past a reading head. Magnetic stripe cards are commonly used in credit cards, identity cards, transportation tickets, and so on. For other uses, see Data (disambiguation). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with magnet. ... Credit cards A credit card is a system of payment named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. ... German identity document sample An identity document is a piece of documentation designed to prove the identity of the person carrying it. ...

A number of International Organization for Standardization standards, ISO 7810, ISO 7811, ISO 7812, ISO 7813, and ISO 4909, define the physical properties of the card, including size, flexibility, location of the magstripe, and magnetic characteristics. They also provide the standards for financial cards, including the allocation of card number ranges to different card issuing institutions. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Standards for financial and identity cards are set out by ISO. All credit cards and debit cards, and most ID cards, are the same shape and size ID-1 as specified by the ISO 7810 standard: ID-1 = 85. ... ISO 7811 is a set of 6 (7811-1 to 7811-6) standards describing the recording technique on identification cards. ... ISO 7812, first published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1989, is the international standard governing magnetic stripe identification cards, such as door entry cards, automated teller machine (ATM) cards, and credit cards. ... ISO 7813 defines standards for banking cards, such as the thickness and the rounding for the corners. ...

The magnetic stripe

The process of attaching a magnetic stripe to a plastic card was invented by IBM under a contract with the US government for a security system. Forrest Parry, an IBM Engineer, had the idea of securing a piece of magnetic tape, the predominant storage medium at the time, to a plastic card base. He became frustrated because every adhesive he tried produced unacceptable results. The tape strip either warped or its characteristics were affected by the adhesive making it technically unusable. After a frustrating day in the laboratory, trying to get the right adhesive, he came home with several pieces of magnetic tape and several plastic cards. As he walked in the door at home, his wife was ironing and watching TV. She immediately saw the frustration on his face and asked what was wrong. He explained the source of his frustration: inability to get the tape to "stick" to the plastic in a way that would work. She said, "Here, let me try the iron." She did and the problem was solved. The heat of the iron was just high enough to bond the tape to the card[1].

There were a number of steps required to convert the magnetic striped media into an industry acceptable device. These steps included: 1) Creating the international standards for stripe record content, including which information, in what format, and using which defining codes. 2) Field testing the proposed device and standards for market acceptance. 3) Developing the manufacturing steps need to mass produce the large number of cards required. 4) Adding stripe issue and acceptance capabilities to available equipment. These steps were initially managed by Jerome Svigals of the Advanced Systems Division of IBM, Los Gatos, California from 1966 to 1975.

In most magnetic stripe cards, the magnetic stripe is contained in a plastic-like film. The magnetic stripe is located 0.223 inches (5.66 mm) from the edge of the card, and is 0.375 inches (9.52 mm) wide. The magnetic stripe contains three tracks, each 0.110 inches (2.79 mm) wide. Tracks one and three are typically recorded at 210 bits per inch (8.27 bits per mm), while track two typically has a recording density of 75 bits per inch (2.95 bits per mm). Each track can either contain 7-bit alphanumeric characters, or 5-bit numeric characters. Track 1 standards were created by the airlines industry (IATA). Track 2 standards were created by the banking industry (ABA). Track 3 standards were created by the Thrift-Savings industry.

Magstripes following these specifications can typically be read by most point-of-sale hardware, which are simply generic general-purpose computers that can be programmed to perform specific tasks. Examples of cards adhering to these standards include ATM cards, bank cards (credit and debit cards including VISA and MasterCard), gift cards, loyalty cards, driver's licenses, telephone calling cards, membership cards, electronic benefit transfer cards (e.g. food stamps), and nearly any application in which value or secure information is not stored on the card itself. Many video game and amusement centers now use debit card systems based on magnetic stripe cards. An Example of one of these is ECS by Embed International. POS must not be confused with EFT/POS and POS Terminal used in Electronic payment POS or PoS is an acronym for point-of-sale (or point of purchase). ... In general, a bank card refers to a plastic card issued by a bank, such as: ATM card, a plastic card only usable at an ATM. Bankcard (credit card), a defunct Australian card network. ... Visa or VISA has several meanings: Look up visa in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Visa (document) — a document required to enter a specific country. ... MasterCard Worldwide (NYSE: MA) is a membership organization owned by the 25,000+ financial institutions that issue its card. ... Scrip is any substitute for currency, which is not legal tender. ... The Food Stamp Program is a program that provides food to low income people living in the United States. ... // Embed International is a supplier manufacturer of debit card systems and management applications for the amusement, leisure and retail industries. ...

Counterexamples of cards which intentionally ignore these standards include hotel keycards, most subway and bus cards, and some national prepaid calling cards (such as for the country of Cyprus) in which the balance is stored and maintained directly on the stripe and not retrieved from a remote database.

Magnetic stripe coercivity

Magstripes come in two main varieties: high-coercivity (HiC) at 4000 Oe and low-coercivity (LoC) at 300 Oe but it is not infrequent to have intermediate values at 2750 Oe. High-coercivity magstripes are harder to erase, and therefore are appropriate for cards that are frequently used or that need to have a long life. Low-coercivity magstripes require a lower amount of magnetic energy to record, and hence the card writers are much cheaper than machines which are capable of recording high-coercivity magstripes. A card reader can read either type of magstripe, and a high-coercivity card writer may write both high and low-coercivity cards (most have two settings, but writing a LoC card in HiC may sometimes work), while a low-coercivity card writer may write only low-coercivity cards. In material science, the Coercivity of a ferromagnetic material is the intensity of the magnetic field required to reduce the magnetization of that material to zero after the magnetization of the sample has reached saturation. ... The oersted is old CGS unit of magnetic field strength (or magnetic induction). ... The oersted is old CGS unit of magnetic field strength (or magnetic induction). ...

In practical terms, usually low coercivity magnetic stripes are a light brown color, and high coercivity stripes are nearly black; exceptions include a proprietary silver-colored formulation on transparent American Express cards. High coercivity stripes are resistant to damage from most magnets likely to be owned by consumers. Low coercivity stripes are easily damaged by even a brief contact with a magnetic purse strap or fastener. Because of this, virtually all bank cards today are encoded on high coercivity stripes despite a slightly higher per-unit cost. American Express (NYSE: AXP), sometimes known as AmEx or Amex, is a diversified global financial services company, headquartered in New York City. ...

Magnetic stripe cards are used in very high volumes in the mass transit sector, replacing paper based tickets with either a directly applied magnetic slurry or hot foil stripe. Slurry applied stripes are generally less expensive to produce and are less resilient but are suitable for cards meant to be disposed after a few uses.

Financial cards

Main article: ISO 7813

There are up to three tracks on magnetic cards used for financial transactions, known as tracks 1, 2, and 3. Track 3 is virtually unused by the major worldwide networks such as VISA, and usually isn't even physically present on the card by virtue of a narrower magnetic stripe. Point-of-sale card readers almost always read track 1, or track 2, and sometimes both, in case one track is unreadable. The minimum cardholder account information needed to complete a transaction is present on both tracks. Track 1 has a higher bit density (210 bits per inch vs. 75), is the only track that may contain alphabetic text, and hence is the only track that contains the cardholder's name. ISO 7813 defines standards for banking cards, such as the thickness and the rounding for the corners. ... Visa or VISA has several meanings: Look up visa in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Visa (document) — a document required to enter a specific country. ...

The information on track 1 on financial cards is contained in several formats: A, which is reserved for proprietary use of the card issuer, B, which is described below, C-M, which are reserved for use by ANSI Subcommittee X3B10 and N-Z, which are available for use by individual card issuers:

Track one, Format B:

• Start sentinel — one character (generally '%')
• Format code="B" — one character (alpha only)
• Primary account number — up to 19 characters
• Field Separator — one character (generally '^')
• Name — two to 26 characters
• Field Separator — one character (generally '^')
• Expiration date — four characters
• Service code — three characters
• Discretionary data — may include Pin Verification Key Indicator (PVKI, 1 character), Pin Verification Value (PVV, 4 characters), Card Verification Value or Card Verification Code (CVV or CVK, 3 characters)
• End sentinel — one character (generally '?')
• Longitudinal redundancy check (LRC) — one character

LRC is a form of computed check character. In telecommunication, a longitudinal redundancy check (LRC) or horizontal redundancy check is a form of redundancy check based on the formation of a block check following preset rules: The block check formation rules are applied in the same manner to each character. ...

The format for track 2 was developed by the banking industry (ABA). This track is written with a 5-bit scheme (4 data bits + 1 parity), which allows for sixteen possible characters, which are the numbers 0-9, plus the six characters  : ; < = > ? . The selection of six punctuation symbols may seem odd, but in fact the sixteen codes simply map to the ASCII range 0x30 through 0x3f, which defines ten digit characters plus those six symbols. The data format is as follows: Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ...

• Start sentinel — one character (generally ';')
• Primary account number — up to 19 chars
• Separator — one char (generally '=')
• Expiration date — four characters
• Service code — three characters
• Discretionary data — as in track one
• End sentinel — one character (generally '?')
• LRC — one character

Note: It is possible for these strips to be completely erased if brought close to high strength Neodymium magnets Neodymium magnet on a bracket from a hard drive A neodymium magnet or NIB magnet (also, but less specifically, called a rare-earth magnet) is a powerful magnet made of a combination of neodymium, iron, and boron — Nd2Fe14B. They have replaced marginally weaker and significantly more heat-resistant samarium-cobalt...

Driver's Licenses (USA)

The data stored on magnetic stripes on American driver's licenses is specified by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).

The following data is stored on track 1:

• Start Sentinel - one character (generally '%')
• State or Province - two characters
• City - unknown length
• Field Separator - one character (generally '^')
• Last Name - unknown length
• Field Separator - one character (generally '$')
• First Name - unknown length
• Field Separator - one character (generally '$')
• Middle Name - unknown length
• Field Separator - one character (generally '^')
• Address - unknown length
• Field Separator - one character (generally '^')
• Unknown (spaces on mine) - unknown length
• End Sentinel - one character (generally '?')

The following data is stored on track 2:

• ISO Issuer Identifier Number (IIN)
• Drivers License / Identification Number
• Field Separator — generally '='
• Expiration Date
• Birth date (YYYYMMDD)
• DL/ID# overflow

The following data is stored on track 3:

• Template V#
• Security V#
• Postal Code
• Class
• Restrictions
• Endorsements
• Sex
• Height
• Weight
• Hair Color
• Eye Color
• ID#
• Reserved Space
• Error Correction
• Security

Other card types

Smart cards are a newer generation of card containing an integrated circuit chip. The card may have metal contacts connecting the card physically to the reader, while contactless cards use a magnetic field or radio frequency (RFID) for proximity reading. A smartcard or smart card is a tiny secure cryptoprocessor embedded within a credit card-sized or smaller (like the GSM SIM) card. ... Integrated circuit of Atmel Diopsis 740 System on Chip showing memory blocks, logic and input/output pads around the periphery Microchips with a transparent window, showing the integrated circuit inside. ... Proximity card is a generic name for contactless integrated circuit device used for security access or payment systems. ... An EPC RFID tag used for Wal-Mart Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. ...

'Hybrid' smart cards include a magnetic stripe in addition to the chip — this is most commonly found in a payment card, so that the cards are also compatible with payment terminals that do not include a smart card reader. The term payment card covers a range of different cards that can be presented by a cardholder to make a payment. ...

External links

• Magnetic Stripe Formats
• Magnetic Stripe Card Standards (from DED Ltd)