Mastercard is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024

guest · Aug 17, 2021

Mastercard is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024
They’ll be gone completely by 2033
August 17, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/17/22628455/mastercard-magnetic-stripe-phase-out-2024-2033

Mastercard is phasing out the use of magnetic stripes on its credit and debit cards over the next decade, as the industry moves towards more secure or convenient alternatives like chips and contactless payments, the company has announced. It says it will be the first payments network to phase out the technology, which dates back to the 1960s.

Mastercard says the transition will start in 2024, when the stripe will no longer be required on new cards in regions like Europe where chip cards are already widely used. In the US, where the adoption of chip payments has been slower, the transition will start in 2027. From 2029, no new Mastercard debit or credit cards will come with a magnetic stripe, and they’ll be gone completely by 2033.
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Magnetic stripes were a huge improvement over the flatbed imprinting machines (aka “knuckle-busters”) that cashiers used to have to use to record card details. But in the 1990s the global EMV chip standard was introduced, which paved the way for cardholder details to be held more securely on small integrated circuit chips embedded into cards.
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Mastercard: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

That thin stripe has remained a fixture on billions of payment cards for decades, even as technology has evolved.
But now the magnetic stripe is reaching its expiration date with Mastercard becoming the first payments network to phase it out.

The shift away from the magnetic stripe points to both consumers changing habits for payments and the development of newer technologies. Today’s chip cards are powered by microprocessors that are much more capable and secure, and many are also embedded with tiny antennae that enable contactless transactions. Biometric cards, which combine fingerprints with chips to verify a cardholder’s identity, offer another layer of security.
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Making digital payments secure and sustainable

The speed of payments innovation is rendering some legacy technologies redundant, with newer developments offering enhanced security and convenience.

According to industry reports, payments made by reading a card’s EMV chip represent 86.1% of face-to-face transactions globally and this number is growing year-on-year. It is therefore the right time to begin retiring magstripe – the logical next step on our path of payments progress.
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guest · Aug 17, 2021

Apple Card to Lose Magnetic Stripe By 2029
August 17, 2021
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/17/apple-card-to-lose-magnetic-stripe-by-2029/

Mastercard last week announced that its cards will no longer be issued with the magnetic stripe by 2029, which will presumably include Apple Card.

The decision comes as consumers have changed their payment habits to prefer newer, more secure technologies. Chip-based cards that feature microprocessors and contactless antennae are now widespread, virtually eliminating the need for the older magnetic stripe technology, which has steadily declined in use in recent years.
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As a Mastercard, the ‌Apple Card‌ features a gray magnetic stripe on the rear of the card at the bottom, under the company's specification requirements. According to the current timeframe set out for phasing out the stripe, Apple and its partner Goldman Sachs can start to issue new Apple Cards without the magnetic stripe from 2027. Apple will be obliged to make the change by 2029.
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guest · Aug 24, 2021

Payment Cards Finally Set to Lose Their Stripes
Mastercard Announces Timeline for Phasing Out Magnetic Stripes. What Took So Long?
August 24, 2021
https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/blogs/payment-cards-finally-set-to-lose-their-stripes-p-3093

Payment cards are set to finally lose their stripes.
Mastercard has announced that starting in 2024, banks and other institutions that issue its credit and debit cards will no longer need to include a magnetic stripe on the back. By 2033, magnetic stripes on its cards will be extinct, it says, except for prepaid cards in the U.S. and Canada.

This change has been a long time coming. Credit for physically affixing a magnetic stripe to a card goes to IBM in the early 1960s.
But other options have long been available. Since the mid-1980s, for example, many European banks have issued smart cards, which include a microchip, eliminating the need to have a magnetic stripe or to maintain systems through which such cards get swiped.
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Given the poor security offered by magnetic stripes and having cashiers visually verify if a signature on the back of a card matches what a customer has just scrawled, one persistent question remains: What's taking so long for magnetic stripes to go extinct?

"For many years. I had a lot of fun complaining about America's attachment to the magnetic stripe and chronicled the transition through to chip cards, contactless and mobile phones," says Dave Birch, a digital financial services expert, in a blog post.
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News of the decline and fall of magnetic stripes comes on the heels of a consumer survey conducted by Phoenix Consumer Payments Monitor last December for Mastercard, which found that only 11% of Americans prefer swiping.
Clearly, change takes time. In a July study, for example, Phoenix found 19% of U.S. consumers didn't want to see magnetic stripes go away.

Merchants in the U.S., however, say they can't wait to see the death of magnetic stripes.

"The merchant community looks forward to a day when requirements to support the magnetic stripe and the burden to protect data merchants really don't need are eliminated," says John Drechny, CEO of the Merchant Advisory Group, which represents more than 165 U.S. merchants.
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