Magnetic cards

Magnetic cards are one of the cheapest available methods of recording information on a plastic card. The magnetic card reader allows you to read the content of the recording.

Plastic cards with a magnetic stripe

A magnetic stripe is a tape on which information can be encoded. Data is read by swiping the card through the reader. This bar allows you to write and read information multiple times in the form digital.

Writing and reading data from the card enables their effective operation, thanks to which magnetic cards are widely used in auto-identification systems, access control, work time registration and many others.

The location and parameters of the strip are determined by the international standard ISO 7811. Currently, two types of strips are used for magnetic cards:

• LoCo (low coercivity) – low coefficient of coercivity of magnetic stripe – approx 300 oe (oersteds)
• HICO (high coercivity) – high coefficient of coercivity of magnetic stripe – up to 4000 oe (oersteds)

HiCo magnetic strip is the most popular strip due to its higher resistance to demagnetization. LoCo magnetic stripe cards are slightly cheaper, but are more susceptible to demagnetization and data loss.

Magnetic stripe capacity and coding standards

There are 3 recording tracks on the magnetic strip with a total capacity of 75 alphanumeric characters and 147 digits. This relatively small capacity is, however, sufficient to record the card number, expiry date, holder’s personal data and additional information.

Available magnetic stripe coding standards:
track 1 (76 characters):
01234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTVWXYZ!@#$^&'()*+-=,./\<>_:;][ (spacja)
track 2 (37 characters): 0123456789:<=>
track 3 (104 characters): 0123456789:<=>
Control characters:
%? – the start and the end of track 1,
;? – the start and the end of track 2 and 3.

Control characters can’t be encoded inside of the track, for example:
12345;123 will encode only 123,
12345?12345678 will encode only 12345.

Some readers show control characters, some readers doesn’t. So both readings ;12345? and 12345 are correct. When providing data for bar coding, it is not necessary to provide control characters – they are always encoded.

Magnetic strips – color variants

The magnetic strip does not have to be black only. Our offer includes several colors of magnetic strips to choose from: gold, silver, blue, green, brown, black.

Despite the growing popularity of cards with RFID modules and NFC tags, magnetic stripe cards are still an excellent choice for applications that do not require advanced solutions or high level security.