Credit Card Anatomy

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: