Credit Card Glossary: Terms and Definitions
		Confused by credit card terms? CreditCards.com's glossary of credit card definitions will help. From account holder to Regulation Z, we have defined the most-common and most-confusing credit card terms.

Magnetic stripe

A stripe of magnetic information that is affixed to the back of a plastic credit or debit card. It can be black, brown or silver in color. The credit card's magnetic stripe contains three tracks of data. Each track is about one-tenth of an inch wide. The first and second tracks in the magnetic stripe are encoded with information about the cardholder's account, such as their credit card number, full name, the card's expiration date and the country code. Additional information can be stored in the third track. With the new generation of credit cards, such as contactless cards, no magnetic stripe is needed.