Magnetic stripe card

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A Magnetic stripe card is a plastic card which has a magnetic stripe on it. Different kinds of information can be stored on the magnetic stripe. Such stripes are usually made of small particles of iron (or another metal). Information is stored by changing the magnetism of the particles, as with magnetic tape Today such cards are widely used for:

• Banking (debit or credit cards)
• Tickets issued for transportation or in parking lots.
• Keys in hotels and other buildings
• Systems to track working hours in companies

There are different ways in which the data is stored on the card. But all of them are read in much the same way, by "swiping" (sliding the card through a slot) on a machine called a reader. These readers can be separate from or built into other machines such as a payment terminal in a cash register or point of sale system.

Similar cards, which can also do calculations themselves, are called smart cards.