How Credit Cards Are Made

Written by Kimberly Bennett on July 10, 2010 – 9:35 pm

Have you ever wondered how a credit card is made? I never really thought about it before which seems rather strange considering how deeply involved these little rectangular objects are embedded into our lives. In fact, writing a check seems somewhat archaic now with the invention of debit or credit cards and your online checking account is probably seeing more debit card transactions than anything else.

Credit cards are created by melting and pressing together several layers of plastic material through the use of heavy machinery. All totaled, it actually involves 5 steps to create a credit card.

1. Melting, Compounding and Extrusion Molding – The core is made from polyvinyl chloride acetate (PVCA) that is melted and then blended with other additives. The molten components are then forced through a flat die (hole) by an extrusion machine to create flat sheets of the blended plastics. The sheets are stacked and continue to roll along until cooled at which point a saw or electric sheers cut the sheets into smaller sheets and then stored.

2. Laminate Film Creation – Laminate film is used to coat the plastic core stock and is created in a similar extrusion process except that a casting roller may be used to create a thin film as compared to the plastic core.

3. Printing – Plastic core is then printed with text and graphics through a process called silk-screening. The magnetic strip is added to the back by hot-stamping it to the card.

4. Laminating – The card is now ready for the laminating film to be adhered to it. Basically, the sheets of core stock are fed through rollers with the laminate film being rolled along with it, above and below. The three sheets are then fed into vacuum shoes which hold the three pieces together while on their way to the tacking station. The tacking station contains infrared heat lamps to warm the top and bottom of the core stock and thereby allowing the laminate to affix to it. The heat and the radiant energy being focused by reflectors allows for smooth bonding to the core stock.

5. Die Cutting and Embossing – Once the lamination is complete, the finished sheets are sent to the die cutting and embossing machines. One sheet will yield 63 cards when processed through the die cutters. Once the individual cards are cut out, the embossing machine stamps each card with its’ own account number.

After the cards are embossed, they are all run through a quality control process to ensure the stamping is legible and that there are no duplications of account numbers. Creating credit card account numbers is it’s own unique process and you can actually verify the credit cards in your own wallet are real pretty quickly.

So there you have it. Now you know how a credit card is made and why it looks are frayed and frazzled when you use them too much or if they are just getting old. Technology has even allowed for credit cards to be made out of other substances like biodegradable plastic and even graphite, so there’s no telling what credit cards will be made of next!

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