Terminology (glossary of terms)
 

Personalisation - application of personal information (photo, full name, printed variable number, contract number, etc.) to a plastic card. Depending on the purpose of the card, different methods of personalisation can be chosen.

Magnetic stripe - a track located on the back side of a plastic card and containing coded information about the owner, card number, expiry date, card account, etc. Thanks to the appearance of the magnetic stripe in the late 70s, the security of the card was significantly improved, and it became possible to quickly read information from the card in ATMs and electronic readers.

For standard readers, the magnetic stripe is 12.7 mm (0.5 inches) wide and is located 4 mm from the edge of the card. There are three tracks on the magnetic stripe on which information can be written. Only Latin letters can be written on the magnetic tracks.

Track 1 - numeric-letter information: up to 76 characters, all Latin capital letters;

Track 2 - digits only, up to 37 characters;

3 track - only digits, up to 104 characters.

Scratch panel - an opaque, erasable security layer covering a password, code or other information. Scratch-panel is used in the production of prepaid cards, Internet cards, mobile communication, IP-telephony. Standard Scratch-panel "zebra" size 40*8mm, applied by "Applicator", located only along the long side of the card.

Barcode - encoded individual information in the form of bars of variable thickness. As a rule, it is used in identification and discount cards.

Embossing (from English emboss - to emboss, emboss) - application of embossed alphanumeric information by means of extrusion. After that, typing is often done - covering of embossed symbols with gold or silver foil for their better highlighting against the background of the printed image of the card.

Embossing of symbols is possible only when the card is horizontally orientated. Embossing is carried out in two types of fonts: 4.5 mm high - large font may contain only digits; 3 mm high - small font may contain digits and capital letters of English or Russian alphabet. Embossing shall be located at a distance of at least 5 mm from any edge of the card.

Hologram - volumetric image obtained as a result of interaction of light waves. Here - a holographic sticker containing a detailed image of volumetric objects and applied to a plastic card. Protects against counterfeiting.

Embossing is a process of applying an image by pressure with a stamp (cliché) heated to a certain temperature using special foil. Only standard colour foil is used for hot stamping.

Contactless card is a general name of contactless devices on integrated circuits (IC) used for access differentiation or in payment systems.

Contactless cards may refer to Em-marine 125 kHz or MiFare 13.56 MHz RFID cards.

3-tag cards or fob cards. They are usually used as additional cards to the main "Family Cards". They can be printed with variable information (barcode, number, variable OR code, etc.).