Mastercard has announced that it will phase out the magnetic stripe on its payment cards in "most markets" from 2024, as contactless payments continue to increase.
The company said that the magnetic stripe will begin to disappear on Mastercard's newly issued credit and debit cards in Europe, while banks in the United States will no longer be required to issue magnetic stripe cards by 2027.
Until 2029, no new credit or debit cards Mastercard will not be issued with a magnetic stripe, except for prepaid cards in the US and Canada. The company expects that none of its credit or debit cards will have a magnetic stripe by 2033.
Mastercard said that this time will be needed for its remaining partners who still rely on technology of the card with a stripe.
"It's time to fully embrace better technologies that ensure consumers can pay simply, quickly and calmly," said Ajay Bhalla, President of Mastercard Cyber and Intelligence.
"This will be better for consumers and better for everyone in the ecosystem."
Magnetic stripe, according to Mastercard, was originally developed in the early 1960s by IBM to allow banks to encode information cards and verify customer cards, but since the arrival of chip technology there has been a decline in the use of magnetic strips.
A survey conducted by Phoenix Consumer Monitor for Mastercard in December revealed that more than half of Americans prefer to use contactless card payments over any other payment method. Only 11% said they preferred to uses magnetic stripe cards.
In March, Mastercard partnered with Samsung Electronics to test a biometric card that uses a built-in fingerprint sensor to approve transactions at the company's store in South Korea.
