Custom magnetic stripe card printing

Two questions decide it. First, how often is the card reissued or re-encoded? If the card is rewritten frequently (hotel keys between stays, short-term access passes), Lo-Co 300 Oe is the right choice. Second, how exposed is the card to strong magnets in daily use (phone cases, magnetic wallet closures, other cards in a stack)? If exposure is high and the card is kept for months or years, Hi-Co 2750 or 4000 Oe is safer. For most retail, banking, transport and long-term access use cases, Hi-Co is the default.

Track 2 is the answer in more than 80% of cases — POS, ATM, loyalty programmes, most retail swipe systems and legacy banking infrastructure all read track 2 as the primary data track. Track 1 is required when alphanumeric character data (cardholder name) must accompany the account number. Track 3 is used mostly by historical hotel, transport and internal balance systems. If you're unsure, share an existing working card and we read its tracks to confirm the exact structure before production.

Yes — this is one of the most common setup scenarios when a client wants to replace an existing batch. Send us a working legacy card (or a magnetic dump of it) and we extract the track structure, character format, start and end sentinels and coercivity to reproduce the same encoding on new cards. Useful for hotel chains, parking operators and transport networks replacing worn batches without reissuing the system configuration.

A CSV or Excel file with one row per card and one column per track works best. Each track field contains the full raw data for that track, including start and end sentinels if your reader expects them. Special characters such as field separators must be represented with their ISO 7811 equivalents. If your system documentation doesn't specify the exact format, send us a working card and we reverse-engineer the structure to build the data file correctly.

Yes, and this is a common requirement during reader migration projects. We produce hybrid cards carrying a magnetic stripe on the back, a visible contact chip on the front, and optionally a contactless antenna inside the card body. The same card works on both the old magnetic swipe infrastructure and the new chip or contactless readers — useful for phased system upgrades where both generations of equipment must be supported.

Every single card is encoded and then read-verified against the source file before packing. Any card that fails read-back is automatically rejected and reprinted. The process is fully automated — it eliminates the risk of a batch arriving with undetected unreadable cards, which is the most common failure mode on magnetic stripe orders from lower-spec producers.

Cards are packed with a specific stacking method (stripe-to-back) that prevents magnetic field interference between neighbouring cards during transit. Avoid storing finished cards near strong magnets, magnetic clasps or bulk demagnetisers. Once in use, a Hi-Co card is generally unaffected by standard consumer magnetic sources (phones, handbag clasps, wallet covers). Lo-Co cards are more sensitive and should be handled with awareness of that.

Yes, in several specific contexts. Legacy POS systems, older hotel room-key infrastructure, regional transport networks and many internal access systems still run on magnetic stripe reading — replacing the hardware is often significantly more expensive than continuing to issue stripe cards. Magnetic stripe also remains useful as a fallback channel on hybrid cards, and as the encoding of choice where the card must be rewritten frequently (Lo-Co). For new deployments on modern infrastructure, smart cards are usually the better choice.

Yes. Two design routes alongside print-ready file orders. Template adaptation — share your hotel, transport or access programme identity, the encoding requirements and any back-of-card information (terms, instructions), and we adapt a magnetic stripe card template to your brand. Full custom design — our designers create the card from scratch with the magnetic stripe zone, signature panel and variable data positioning correctly handled. Both options are quoted alongside the print order.