| ISO
Magnetic Stripe Card Standards
The majority
of magnetic cards used in the UK, Europe and USA confirm to the following
ISO standards for magnetic cards.
ISO
Number |
Description
of Standard |
| 7810 |
Physical
Characterisitics of Credit Card Size Document |
| 7811-1 |
Embossing |
| 7811-2 |
Magnetic
Stripe - Low Coercivity |
| 7811-3 |
Location
of Embossed Characters |
| 7811-4 |
Location
of Tracks 1 and 2 |
| 7811-5 |
Location
of Track 3 |
| 7811-6 |
Magnetic
Stripe - High Coercivity |
| 7813 |
Financial
Transaction Cards |
|
Full copies
of these standards can be pruchased from www.iso.org
and www.ansi.org. The information below
is abstracted from these standards.
Physical
Dimensions of Cards:
Physical
Plastic Card |
2.175",
55.245mm |
| 3.375",
85.725mm
0.030", 0.762mm thick |
|
Characteristics
of Tracks:
| Position |
Track
Number |
Recording
Density
(bits per inch) |
Character
Configuration
(including parity bit)
|
Information Content
(including control characters) |
0.223" (5.664mm) from card edge
|
| 0.110"
(2.794mm) |
Track
1 |
210BPI |
7
bits per character |
79
Alphanumeric characters |
|
| 0.110"
(2.794mm) |
Track
2 |
75BPI |
5
bits per character |
40
Numeric characters |
|
| 0.110"
(2.794mm) |
Track
3 |
210BPI |
5
bits per character |
107
Numeric characters |
|
Track
One:
| |
<
|
76
alphanumeric characters |
> |
|
| SS |
FC |
data |
FS |
data |
FS |
data |
ES |
LRC |
|
| |
|
Description |
Value |
SS |
|
Start
Sentinel |
05h |
FC |
|
Format
Code |
|
| FS |
|
Field
Seperator |
3Eh |
ES |
|
End
Sentinel |
1Fh |
LRC |
|
Longitudinal
Redunancy Check Character |
|
Track
Two:
| |
<
|
37
numeric characters |
> |
|
| SS |
|
data |
FS |
data
|
ES |
LRC |
|
| |
|
Description |
Value |
SS |
|
Start
Sentinel |
0Bh |
| FS |
|
Field
Seperator |
0Dh |
ES |
|
End
Sentinel |
0Fh |
LRC |
|
Longitudinal
Redunancy Check Character |
|
Track
Three:
(ISO 4909)
| |
<
|
104
numeric characters |
> |
|
| SS |
FC |
data |
FS |
data |
ES |
LRC |
|
| |
|
Description |
Value |
SS |
|
Start
Sentinel |
0Bh |
FC |
|
Format
Code |
2
digits |
| FS |
|
Field
Seperator |
0Dh |
ES |
|
End
Sentinel |
0Fh |
LRC |
|
Longitudinal
Redunancy Check Character |
|
Character
Sets
Data stored
on magnetic stripes does not use the standard ASCII character set as used
on PCs. Below are the two ANSI/ISO character sets used on magnetic stripes.
ANSI/ISO
ALPHA Data Format
(Track 1)
The
ANSI/ISO ALPHA format is 7 bit, 6 data bits + 1 parity bit (odd). The
data is read least significant bit first. The character set contains 64
characters, 43 alphanumeric, 3 framing/field characters and 18 control/special
characters.
Characters
used are :
space
! " # $ %
& ' ( ) * + , - . /
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [
\ ] ^ -
Characters
marked red are the framing/field
seperators and will not appear as data characters.
Characters
marked green are the control/special
characters.
ANSI/ISO
BCD Data Format
(Tracks 2 and 3)
The
ANSI/ISO BCD format is 5 bit, 4 data bits + 1 parity bit (odd). The data
is read least significant bit first.
The character set contains 16 characters, 10 alphanumeric, 3 framing/field
characters and 3 control/special characters.
Characters
used are :
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
: ; < = >
?
Characters marked red
are the framing/field seperators and will not appear as data characters.
Characters
marked green are the control/special
characters.
|
