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Q-Card has entered into an agreement to acquire the equipment and technology used to produce the official magnetic stripe reference cards. The equipment was developed for this specific purpose by a German company, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), which will cease to offer these services in 2008. Reference cards contain a magnetic stripe that produces a known amplitude at saturation. These cards can be used to calibrate magnetic stripe analyzers, which are needed to verify quality during the manufacturing process of cards and tickets that include a magnetic stripe, such as credit cards, hotel key cards and transit tickets. An estimated 1.7 billion magnetic stripe cards and tickets are manufactured each year. Q-Card will assume responsibility for providing secondary reference cards in compliance with both ISO/IEC 7811-2:2001 low coercivity recording techniques and ISO/IEC 7811-6:2001 high coercivity recording techniques. “It is gratifying to know that our company can provide this service to the industry,” said Q-Card President Ed Bedell. “Our focus has always been to develop products and services that support the magnetic stripe industry. That experience—and the expertise that comes with it—certainly puts us in a position to manage the oversight of these standards.” Q-Card was qualified to be selected based on its experience in technical
standards certification, involvement in the standardization of magnetic
stripe cards, financial and technical strength, and certification in
ISO9001 2000. It was important to the ISO/IEC that the company
that adopts this responsibility is in a position to enable WG1 to stay
involved in the continued development and maintenance of the standard.
WG1 is the working group within ISO/IEC (the International Organization
for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission)
that is responsible for developing and maintaining the standards for
recording and reading information on a magnetic stripe.
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