Computers: Magnetic-stripe credit cards: Big business in the offing: A new type of credit card brings a banker, or his cash-dispensing machine, on line and speeds checkout and payment for retail goods

The magnetic-stripe credit card, a relative newcomer on the credit card scene, shows promise for expanding the traditional role of the credit card in our society. In addition to performing all of the conventional functions of embossed, physically coded, and other forms of magnetic data storage cards (see the box on p. 61 for a comparison of the various technologies), the magnetic-stripe credit card (MSCC) offers additional advantages. Prominent among these is the capability of performing on-line credit transactions in real time, which has led to unattended cash dispensers or on-line self-service banking. Another advantage is ease of magnetic reading of the card. Wand-type readers, moved by hand, can easily tolerate the velocity and acceleration variations that the human hand can produce. And the magnetic-stripe card can even be used, by the addition of a separate stripe, to perform part of the function of a data base in an on-line system — i.e., record allowable total cash dispensed, number of transactions, balance, etc.