Magnetic Card Swipe ISO Characters

Description

Data stored on Magnetic Card Swipe Readers make use of the ANSI/ISO character sets, as opposed to the standard ASCII character set as used on PCs.

Below are the two ANSI/ISO character sets used on magnetic stripes.

ANSI/ISO BCD Data Format (Tracks 2 and 3)

The ANSI/ISO BCD format is 5 bit, 4 data bits + 1 parity bit (odd). The data is read least significant bit first.
The character set contains 16 characters, 10 alphanumeric, 3 framing/field characters and 3 control/special characters.

Character	Value	Function
	(Hex)
0	00	Data
1	01	Data
2	02	Data
3	03	Data
4	04	Data
5	05	Data
6	06	Data
7	07	Data
8	08	Data
9	09	Data
:	0A	Control
;	0B	Start Sentinel
<	0C	Control
=	0D	Field Separator
>	0E	Control
?	0F	End Sentinel

ANSI/ISO ALPHA Data Format (Track 1)

The ANSI/ISO ALPHA format is 7 bit, 6 data bits + 1 parity bit (odd). The data is read least significant bit first.
The character set contains 64 characters, 43 alphanumeric, 3 framing/field characters and 18 control/special characters.

Character	Value	Function
	(Hex)
space	00	Special
!	01	Special
"	02	Special
#	03	Special
$	04	Special
%	05	Start Sentinel
&	06	Special
'	07	Special
(	08	Special
)	09	Special
*	0A	Special
+	0B	Special
,	0C	Special
-	0D	Special
.	0E	Special
/	0F	Special

0	10	Data
1	11	Data
2	12	Data
3	13	Data
4	14	Data
5	15	Data
6	16	Data
7	17	Data
8	18	Data
9	19	Data

:	1A	Special
;	1B	Special
<	1C	Special
=	1D	Special
>	1E	Special
?	1F	End sentinel
@	20	Special

A	21	Data
B	22	Data
C	23	Data
D	24	Data
E	25	Data
F	26	Data
G	27	Data
H	28	Data
I	29	Data
J	2A	Data
K	2B	Data
L	2C	Data
M	2D	Data
N	2E	Data
O	2F	Data
P	30	Data
Q	31	Data
R	32	Data
S	33	Data
T	34	Data
U	35	Data
V	36	Data
W	37	Data
X	38	Data
Y	39	Data
Z	3A	Data

[	3B	Special
\	3C	Special
]	3D	Special
	3E	Field Separator
_	3F	Special

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Magnetic Card Swipe ISO Characters

Description

ANSI/ISO BCD Data Format (Tracks 2 and 3)

ANSI/ISO ALPHA Data Format (Track 1)

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