What Information Are Typically Stored On The Magnetic Stripe Of Debit, Gift Cards
This is the digital age and when everything has gone digital can the payment be an exception. As today instead of carrying money as cash you just carry your card and make the payments with them. These cards have magnetic stripe and are made in the magnetic stripe card factory.
It is safe and convenient to carry credit or debit cards when you travel and go overseas. Payment is accepted by most businesses today. There will be very few people who do not use these cards these days.
So instead of being an exception it has become a norm to use cards nowadays. These cards hold all the information that can allow the payments to be made. So what kind of information is stored on these magnetic stripe card that are used as debit card, credit card or gift cards.
What is the kind of information on these cards then?
These magnetic stripe cards that are used for payment are also referred to as magstripes. The data on them is encoded in three tracks directly. The track 1 and track 2 are actively used during the payment process with a card. The third one the track 3 is used only rarely. Many a time this may not be present on the card too.
The track and track 2 contain all the basic information needed to make the payment using these cards. Payment is made by swiping on the payment machines which have readers attached to them. They will be able to read the information on track 1 and track 2.
Track 1 is thus formatted in the payment cards-
There are various fields and it starts with one character in the start sentinel section. Then is the next character in the format code and this indicates the type of card it is whether it is debit card or credit card. Then in the next section the primary account number is encoded which has up to 19 digits. These are always numerical. This is called the credit or debit card number.
Then the next character is the field separator and it delimits the track 1 fields. Next is the name of the card holder in 2-26 characters. Then is the expiry date in 4 digit always in the format of YYMM. Then it will be the service code in 3 digits. This indicates the type of charges that can be accepted. Then it will be the discretionary data which is variable. This is determined by the one who issues the card. This may include the card code and/ or PINs. Then is the end sentinel in one character. Then the last one is the longitude redundancy check which is used to verify that the track 1 is read correctly and it is one character. The whole of the track 1 data cannot be more than 79 characters.
Then is the track 2 which is of 40 characters. This track has the same sections except that of the name. Then the discretionary data can vary in both the tracks.
Using these information on the card it can be made use of to make payments to those who accept them.
