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 is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024
Although chip cards are being positioned as the successor to magnetic stripes, Mastercard notes that contactless payments, which can be made by either a card or digitally using most modern smartphones, have exploded in popularity during the pandemic. The amount of contactless transactions have increased by 1 billion in the first quarter of this year compared to last year, it says. Globally 45 percent of in-person checkout transactions in the second quarter of the year were contactless.
