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
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
