The Basics of Magstripe Cards

Magnetic stripe cards are one of the cheapest ways of storing secure information on a plastic ID card. The technology has been around for a long time, with its capabilities being applied towards numerous applications, including access control systems, tills registers, loyalty cards and even parking tickets.

Essentially, it’s just a piece of metallic magnetic tape embedded into the surface of the card. There are international standards put in place that specify where on a normal card the magstripe is placed and how it can be read. A standard magstripe has three lines of information on it. Typically you would only need to use one for a specific system though, most of the time, people write to track two.

The two basic types of magnetic stripe are high and low coercivity. The coervicity is rated in Oersteds (oe) which dictates the strength of magnetic field required to change the information the card carries. For plastic ID cards, high coercivity is much more common these days. You can often tell which type of magstripe a card has by looking at it. HiCo are very dark brown or black, LoCo are a lighter brown.

Low coercivity cards are unpopular for long term use partly because of how relatively easy it can be for the information on them to be changed or erased in day to day use. However, they are still commonly used on disposable passes, such as train tickets.

Please give us a call on 0800 408 1471 if you are unsure what type of magnetic stripe cards you need, or if you need advice about what you can do with this technology.