Magnetic stripe card

CR80 ISO standard card, 2-3 stripes. Magnetic stripes are used in credit cards, cost control cards, copy machine cards and so on.

The stripe on the back of a magcard is a magnetic stripe, often called a magstripe. The magstripe is made up of tiny iron-based magnetic particles in a plastic-like film.

Your credit card typically uses only tracks one and two. Track three is a read/write track (which includes an encrypted PIN, country code, currency units and amount authorized), but its usage is not standardized among banks.

The information on track one in a credit card is contained in two formats: A, which is reserved for proprietary use of the card issuer, and B, which includes the following:

Start sentinel - one character
Format code="B" - one character (alpha only)
Primary account number - up to 19 characters
Separator - one character
Country code - three characters
Name - two to 26 characters
Separator - one character
Expiration date or separator - four characters or one character
Discretionary data - enough characters to fill out maximum record length (79 characters total)
End sentinel - one character
Longitudinal redundancy check (LRC) - one character

LRC is a form of computed check character.

The format for track two, developed by the banking industry, is as follows:

Start sentinel - one character
Primary account number - up to 19 chars
Separator - one char
Country code - three chars
Expiration date or separator - four characters or one character
Discretionary data - enough characters to fill out maximum record length (40 characters total)
LRC - one character