{"id":40,"date":"2019-09-09T07:36:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T07:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cardprinting.com\/articles\/?p=40"},"modified":"2026-04-13T13:23:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:23:52","slug":"guide-to-magnetic-stripes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cardprinting.com\/articles\/guide-to-magnetic-stripes\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnetic Stripe Cards: A Beginner\u2019s Guide to Mag Stripe Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Magnetic stripe cards, often called mag stripe cards, are plastic cards with a stripe on the back that can be encoded with data for use in gift card, loyalty, membership, access, identification, and point-of-sale systems. They remain a practical, affordable option for businesses that need cards to work with existing POS equipment, card readers, or membership systems. CardPrinting.com prints custom magnetic stripe cards and provides guidance on stripe type, track format, and data setup for your program.<\/p>\n

Magnetic Stripe Card Printing for Your Business<\/h3>\n

Need to print magnetic stripe cards for your business? CardPrinting.com produces custom magnetic stripe cards compatible with your POS system, membership program, or access control setup \u2014 with encoding options to match your existing hardware.<\/p>\n

A mag stripe stores small bits of information. Magnetic card readers retrieve that information when the credit card is used to make a purchase. The magnetic stripe, or magstripe, is made up of tiny iron-based magnetic particles in a plastic-like film. Each particle is a small bar magnet about 20 millionths of an inch long. Magnetic stripe cards are on plastic cards<\/a>, ID cards<\/a>, custom printed gift cards<\/a>, and point-of-sale-activation (POSA) cards<\/a>. \"Order<\/a><\/p>\n

Each stripe contains three tracks. Each track is basically a single physical (but invisible) line on the magnetic strip and must meet ISO standards when encoding these tracks. Information redundancy has also been built in on a magnetic stripe. This design redundancy means that if the first track of the magnetic stripe is damaged, the second track can still carry enough information to use the credit card to make purchases. Point-of-sale card readers almost always read track 1, or track 2, and sometimes both, in case one track is unreadable.<\/p>\n

Point-of-sale equipment is electronics gadgetry that is programmed to perform specific tasks – such as reading magnetic stripes. Examples of cards adhering to these standards include 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), and nearly any application in which value or secure information is not stored on the card itself. Many video game and amusement centers now use debit card systems based on magnetic stripe cards.<\/p>\n

Mag stripes come in two varieties: high-coercivity (Hi\/Co) and low-coercivity (Lo\/Co). High-coercivity magnetic stripes are harder to erase, and therefore are appropriate for frequently-used cards or which those that need to have a long life. Low-coercivity mag stripes require a lower amount of magnetic energy to record, and hence the card writers are much cheaper than machines which are capable of recording high-coercivity magnetic stripes. Both high-coercivity and low-coercivity cards have up to three tracks for encoding.<\/p>\n

High coercivity magnetic stripes require a stronger magnetic field to encode data, which also makes the stored information more resistant to accidental erasure. While the data can still be erased, it typically takes a much stronger magnet than those found in everyday household items.<\/p>\n

Common Uses for Magnetic Stripe Cards<\/h3>\n

Magnetic stripe cards are used across a wide range of industries because they are reliable, cost-effective, and compatible with existing card reader systems. Common applications include:<\/p>\n