The Anatomy of a Credit Card

Front of the card

1. Issuing bank logo
2. Hologram – three dimensional photograph
3. Card number – The first digit on the credit card is the system number or Major Industry Identifier

Numbers 3 to 6 are used by the credit card industries.

• 3 – cards such as American Express and Diners Club (travel and entertainments cards)

• 4 – Visa

• 5 – Master Card

• 6 – Discover Card

American Express – The 3rd digit is the type of card. For American express, this is 37 and for diners club it is 38. The 4th number is the currency, numbers 5 to 11 is your individual account number, 12 to 14 represents your card number and 15 is the check digit.
Master Card – The 2nd and 3rd, 2nd to 4th, 5th, or 6th numbers represents the bank number. Numbers after the bank number up to the 15th number represent your individual account number and the 16th number is the check digit.
Visa – The 2nd through 6th are the bank number (your issuing bank), 7th through 12th or 15th are the account number and the 13th or 16th number is the check digit.

The check digit is used for error detection. It verifies the accuracy and validity of credit card numbers.

4. Expiration date of card represented by 2 digit month/2 digit year
5. Type of card logo - e.g. VISA, MASTERCARD
6. Your name

Back of the card

1.Magnetic Stripe - Have you ever wondered when you perform the whip and swipe action at a store, how they are able to get all that information on you? The answer lies in then black stripe and the back of you card. This is the magnetic stripe, aka magstripe. There are three tracks on a magstipe, which are about 0.1 inches wide. The credit card typically uses one tracks one and two. Track one corresponds to alphanumeric ASCII characters, and track two and three numeric characters. Track one is the only track that contains alphabets and as such is the only one with the name of the cardholder. On track one, the information entails the following:

• Start sentinel - This is represented by one character. It indicated the beginning of the data.
• Format code="B"-one character. There are several formats: A which is reserved for proprietary use of the card issuer, B described here, C to M reserved by ANSI Subcommittee X3B10 and N to Z used by individual card holders
• Primary account number-Your credit card account number
• Name-Your name
• Field Seperator- Seperators fields
• Expiration date-Your card is valid till this date
• Service-This is a three digit value that instructs that conveys information to the merchants terminal on how a card should be processed.
• Discretionary data-This data may include the Pin Verification Key Indicator (PVKI), Pin Verification Value (PVV), Card Verification Value (CVV) or Card Verification Code (CVC).
• End sentinel- Encoded at the end of the data, and indicates to the reader (or decoder) the end of the data.
• Longitudinal redundancy check (LRC)-Inserted immediately after the End sentinel, and checks for error.

Track two has the following:

• Start sentinel

• Primary account number

• Seperator

• Expiration date

• Discretionary data

• End sentinel

• LRC

2. Signature Stripe – Your signature goes here. A card is not valid unless this is signed.
3. Card Security Code aka Card Verification Value or Code (CVV or CVC) – There are two security codes on your card. One, CVC1 encoded in the magnetic stripe and the second, CVV2 or CVC2, on the back of your card. The CVV2 or CVC2 code aka Credit Card ID, is often required by merchants to verify transactions in which the card is not presents such as over the internet, the phone, etc.