Why do credit cards have tape and embossed numbers
00;00;07;00 This is a debit card, or it could be a credit card.
00;00;11;14 You all know one of these is evil, you use them countless times
00;00;14;15 probably more often than you wish you did.
00;00;16;22. Millions of these get printed every year.
00;00;21;04 But I have a couple of questions about it.
00;00;23;07 And do you know how they actually work.
00;00;25;03 So right here is a magnetic strip actually got three different tracks information on it.
00;00;35;14 And how it works is really quite clever.
00;00;38;14 So it’s each strip each each track has tiny, tiny little magnets in it,
00;00;46;22 I’m talking like 100 millionth of an inch thick each magnet.
00;00;51;10 And a magnet can be either a positive or a negative
00;00;55;19 or it can be a North charge or a South charge polarisation of it.
00;01;01;05 And once you have something that can be either that way or that way,
00;01;05;22 you’ve got binary code. So if you have the number three, for example,
00;01;10;15 the binary code for three is is two ones.
00;01;16;00 So you could have two magnets polarised in the same direction.
00;01;19;10 And then and then the system will know that that’s a three
00;01;22;19 because it’s reading the binary code.
00;01;24;17 Or if it’s a two, it’s just a one and a zero,
00;01;27;19 which so you could have one polarised North one polarised south,
00;01;31;06 and that’s the two number one is actually just one polarised one way.
00;01;37;06 And the number zero is polarised the other way.
00;01;39;06 And as you get to other numbers that it becomes more complicated.
00;01;43;06 So that’s how this works. But why do we need it?
00;01;47;12 Because quite a while ago, we introduced this the chip.
00;01;53;29 And now the chip does the exact same thing that the magnet does.
00;01;57;25 The reason why we have it is it more secure and more resilient.
00;02;03;22 Because you might find that your card has stopped working or this
00;02;07;25 stripe has stopped working. It’s because it’s become demagnetized.
00;02;10;22 Now all this stripe does is hold the details of the card.
00;02;15;08 So the long card number, the expiry date the three digit code on the back.
00;02;19;10 And the reason why it was useful is it could swipe it into the machine.
00;02;22;28 And the machine would read all that information instantly,
00;02;25;20 you wouldn’t have to key it all in. But now we don’t need it, we have the chip.
00;02;30;01 Some of you might say, Well, sometimes the chip doesn’t work.
00;02;32;20 And that’s true. But you can just key in the details if needed.
00;02;37;28 I mean, I paid a vet bill the other day.
00;02;40;26 And the vet said to me, can you read me the loan card number please?
00;02;43;26 Can you read me the expiry date, can you remove the three digit code and he just
00;02;47;07 keyed it all in and away we go.
00;02;49;17 So how much additional money is being spent in creating cards
00;02;54;29 that still have this magnetic strip that really isn’t necessary anymore.
00;03;00;11 I have another question for you. If you’re my age or older,
00;03;05;02 you’ll know why we embossed the letters, we punch the letters out on these cards,
00;03;11;02 you might remember the old credit card machines where you would put the card in.
00;03;16;08 And then you would put a carbon copied three pieces of paper.
00;03;22;07 And then you would run the little roller over it.
00;03;25;18 And it would leave an imprint on the paper
00;03;29;07 and on three layers of the paper and you would keep one
00;03;32;15 and give one to the customer. And I think one was for another purpose.
00;03;36;02 And that’s why the embossing was there.
00;03;39;07 Because when you ran the roller over, it made an imprint on paper.
00;03;43;07 We haven’t done that. I can’t remember the last time I saw anyone use that.
00;03;48;19 Because again, you’ve now got the chip that can tell you the information.
00;03;52;12 Or if the chips not working or is faulty,
00;03;54;07 you can always just punch in the numbers into the point of sale device that you’re using.
00;03;59;09 So my question then is how much money do we spend creating these
00;04;03;06 special cars that have this special embossing on them?
00;04;06;13 That is now completely unnecessary and redundant.
00;04;09;24 So there’s two things on your common debit or credit card
00;04;15;02 Why do we still have a magnetic tape strip on the back?
00;04;20;00 Why do we still embossed cards with this with this raised lettering,
00;04;26;08 both of which are going to add to the cost
00;04;28;26 of how much it cost to produce one of these cards and like I said,
00;04;34;00 we produced millions of these every year. It’s food for thought
00;04;39;07 on how you could improve and basic everyday object that we use all the time.
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