Money, money circulation and credit - стр. 28
As electronic data storage device payment cards are divided on cards with magnetic stripes and cards with chips (microcircuits). The first are called magstripes and the second – smart cards or chip cards.
Cards with magnetic stripes have magnetic stripes on the back side which keep data including card’s number (banking current account), name of a holder, date of expiry (VISA, EUROCARD, MASTERCARD). Magnetic stripe doesn’t contain an information about the holder’s account status.
When card «passes through» a point-of-sale terminal it reads out a number of holder’s banking account from a magnetic stripe after that the terminal connects to a banking processing center in order to receive a confirmation about the required sum availability. Otherwise speaking the bank’s permission of an emitter is requested to perform an operation using this card.
Bank’s permission to perform an operation by means of banking card which constitutes bank’s obligation to transfer money according to settlement document drawn with its help is called authorisation. Upon the bank’s permission receipt a point-of-sale terminal prints a slip (a special trade check) in three copies: one for buyer, second stays in trade enterprise and third should be sent to bank for payment. On the basis of presented slip the bank debits the card’s holder account and transfers money to the trade enterprise account.
Integrated circuit card (smart card) – memory card. Instead of magnetic stripe it has a built in microcircuit (microprocessor) which itself keeps an information about holder’s banking account current status and confirms availability (or absence) of required sum. As a result the speed of such cards authorization in passing through a terminal station is much higher – 5-10 seconds. Their information capacity is much bigger than the cards with magnetic stripes have but they are more expensive.
One of modifications of smart cards is «an electronic wallet». The conception of its creation is quite new and only high-powered card systems make its issue. Unlike the common plastic cards the electronic wallets are not linked to the client’s current banking account absolutely. It is «charged» on a definite sum of money thus the settlements made with its help do not require any authorization.
During an electronic wallet purchase in bank in the form of a definite type of card it is «empty». It could be purchased by a some money place to a common account which wouldn’t be refilled before the full write-off this sum. This sum is an amount of an electronic wallet’s «charge», i.e. this sum is at holder’s disposal during the purchases of goods and services. When the sum will be exhausted an electronic wallet could be «charged» again.