What is a Swipe card?

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. How is it read? The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card or magstripe, is read by physical contact and swiping past a magnetic reading head. Why go for swipe cards? Security Authenticity Simplicity Cost efficiency Portability History Invented by IBM in 1960 Forrest Parry, an IBM Engineer, is regarded as the father of the swipe card Initially, the magnetic strip was ironed to a plastic card A number of International Organization for Standardization standards, ISO/IEC 7810, ISO/IEC 7811, ISO/IEC 7812, ISO/IEC 7813, ISO 8583, and ISO/IEC 4909, now define the physical properties of the card How does a swipe card look like? Physically, a swipe card is a piece of plastic The dimension of swipe card is 3-1/8 x 2-1/8 Consists of a series of numbers on its face When talking about financial cards, this series is generally 14 to 16 digits long These numbers as a group, identify user Individually they identify the financial institution user deals with Consists of a series of numbers on its face When talking about financial cards, this series is generally 14 to 16 digits long These numbers as a group, identify user Individually they identify the financial institution user deals with the first few digits identify the financial institution the next few are your account number the last digit is whats called a check digit Check Digit? The process of checking the credit card number is done by multiplying the sum of the odd digits by 3, which is then added to the sum of the even digits which, when added to the check digit, will equal a multiple of 10. How does a swipe card look like? The back of the swipe card consists of a magstrip It is located 0.223 inches (5.56 mm) from the edge of the card It is 0.375 inches (9.52 mm) wide About the Magnetic strip It is made up of tiny iron-based magnetic particles in a plastic-like film.

 Each particle is a tiny bar magnet about 20-millionths of an inch long. The magstripe can be "written" because the tiny bar magnets can be magnetized in either a north or south pole direction The magnetic stripe contains three tracks. Each track is 0.110 inches (2.79 mm) wide. Each track can either contain 7-bit alphanumeric characters, or 5-bit numeric characters. Track one is 210 bits per inch (bpi), and holds 79 6-bit plus parity bit read-only characters. Track two is 75 bpi, and holds 40 4-bit plus parity bit characters. Track three is 210 bpi, and holds 107 4-bit plus parity bit characters. Swipe cards typically use only tracks one and two. Track three is a read/write track Magnetic stripe coercivity Magstripes come in two main varieties: i) high-coercivity (HiCo) at 4000 Oe ii) low-coercivity (LoCo) at 300 Oe How is information fed to the strip? Done by a device Magnetic Card Reader The orientation of the iron bar magnets is changed Thus, the data contained changes This relative orientation holds the PIN, country code, etc. What happens when we swipe? The black strip is read whenever the card is swept The information contained is sent to the central billing and tracking system Microscopic magnetic particles represent certain information EDC reads all the information in the magstripe While dealing with financial cards, the EDC dials a stored telephone number Acquirer collects credit-authentication requests from merchants and provides the merchants with a payment guarantee. Advantages of Swipe CardsCost Efficient Card reader System is easy to install Easy to monitor and control each of the individual cards given to users Provides Security Highly Portable Disdvantages of Swipe Cards Swipe card door entry systems can sometimes be a little bit unreliable Proper speed of swiping important Cards are vulnerable to scratches Applications and Utility ATM cards, bank cards (credit and debit cards including VISA and MasterCard), gift cards, loyalty cards, driver's licenses, telephone cards, membership cards, electronic benefit transfer cards (e.g. food stamps) Conclusion The Magnetic Swipe card has been an excellent invention, that has brought the world globally and economically closer. It has increased the speed of tasks and transactions to a large extent.