Magnetic stripes used on cards today have a 16mm plastic band evenly coated with a very fine layer of magnetisable material (iron oxide and carbon dioxide particles).

HiCo and LoCo

The standard magnetic fields generally present a magnetic field strength of 300 Oe. Magnetic cards fitted with these stripes are called LoCo (Low Coercivity).

We refer to HiCo (High Coercivity) cards when the magnetic card is fitted with stripes with coercivity ranging between 2,750 and 4,000 Oe. This type of card prevents any accidental data deletion due to exposure to magnetic fields.

All of our cards are fitted with a HiCo magnetic stripe and three ISO tracks (Track 1, Track 2 and Track 3) and can consequently in theory contain three different encodings for three different types of applications for example, provided that the scanners are correctly configured.

You can choose to integrate a magnetic stripe into your card. In any event, this is standard technology and there is no additional charge.

In order for an application to operate (for example, photocopiers), it is first necessary to encode the magnetic stripe, i.e., record a code, a number which will be read by the scanner to grant access to the application.

A track can be encoded at three different times

1. by the factory when the card is produced. The ISIC card unique serial number can be encoded on track 2 at no additional charge, or
2. directly when the card is printed using an appropriate printer, or
3. 3. by an external supplier which owns the encoding format. In this case, we will send the cards to the supplier upon completion of factory production and the supplier will encode the cards. We can then personalise the cards (students’ data, etc.).

The magnetic stripe can be in different colours. Text can be printed directly on the magnetic stripe in the factory.

We will coordinate these operations in order to save you spending time on these tedious administrative duties and above all to ensure that the applications operate smoothly.

We have a very good understanding of all of these technical aspects and the main suppliers on the market.