Magnetic stripe

Magnetic stripes come in two types: HiCo and LoCo.

LoCo

• Less durable;
• Requires less magnetic energy for recording;
• Best suited for rarely used cards, or cards with frequently changed information;
• Easier damaged by magnetic fields;
• Can be read in all card readers;
• Card recording devices are much cheaper, and can only record LoCo strips;
• Most often used in hotels for keys, parking, gift cards.

HiCo

• Harder to delete data;
• Requires more magnetic energy for recording;
• To make cards for frequent and extensive use;
• Resistant to magnetic effects;
• Can be read by any card reader;
• Card recording devices are more expensive, can report both HiCo and LoCo magnetic strips;
• Most commonly used in bank, membership and loyalty cards, driving licenses, access control cards.

HiCo magnetic stripe has three separate tracks: Track 1, Track 2, Track, 3. The second track is used most often. The first and third tracks can be used for encoding both textual and numeric information, the second strip – only for numerical information. Limited number of characters can be recorded on different tracks: track 1 – up to 76; track 2 – up to 37; track 3 – up to 104 characters.

You can choose different colours of HiCo stripes: black, silver or gold.