Mastercard will no longer include magnetic stripes on cards | Gadget theory

According to BBC, Mastercard has announced that by 2033, no company-issued credit or debit cards will have a magnetic stripe, and many banks in Europe will start issuing stripless cards from 2024.

Mastercard will move away from magnetic strips

Beginning in 2006, the UK began to use chip and PIN for card payments, but many places in the US continue to use magnetic stripe systems.

Mastercard said biometric cards using fingerprints and chip and PIN cards provide better security.

The company said it would become the first payment network to phase out magnetic stripe technology. A spokesperson shared with the BBC that “the level of worldwide acceptance of the chip and pin was such that the time had come to start phasing out magnetic tape.

The slow elimination is to leave what the company calls a “long trail” for companies that accept payments to chip and pin. “

Contactless payments continue to increase

Magnetic tape technology began in the 1960s, when IBM looked for a way to create ID cards for CIA personnel. IBM engineer Forrest Parry had the idea of ​​putting information encoded on a magnetic strip on a plastic card, but had difficulty putting it together.

It was his wife, Dorothy Parry, who came up with the idea to heat the strip of duct tape to stick it to the card, which she first did with an iron she owned.

Since the rise of the coronavirus pandemic, Mastercard has said it has been stressed that there is a need and a desire for new ways to pay, which means Parry’s invention will soon become history.

There has been a huge increase in contactless payments in 2021

In the first quarter of 2021, contactless payments, made by card or smartphone, increased by more than a billion compared to the same period in 2020.

Methods using biometric payment systems continue to be explored, including facial recognition and palm scanners.