How credit cards are made
A credit card is a laminated sandwich of printed plastic sheets, cut out of a big sheet in one stroke.
- stations
- 7
- things upstream
- 80
- raw sources
- 23
- steps from the ground
- 9
The short version
Cards are printed in big sheets, not one at a time. PVC core sheets run through offset or screen presses, then machines stack them with overlays that already carry the magnetic stripe. Heat and pressure fuse the stack, and an optically guided die punches out each card. A hologram, signature panel and chip are added before personalization.
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Print the core sheets
Thin PVC core sheets, often split into two layers about .013 inches thick, run through offset or screen presses. Cyan, magenta, yellow and black combine into the image, and fiducial marks are printed for later alignment. Digital printing handles short runs.
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Collate with overlays
Machines stack front and back sheets by optical registration and add clear overlay films. Those overlays protect against scratches and sunlight, and the back one already carries the magnetic stripe.
Goes in -
Laminate under heat
The stack goes into a heating tower, then transfers automatically to a cooling tower under pressure. What once took hours now takes minutes, and it fuses layers and stripe into one slab.
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Shear and punch
The slab is sheared down, then a male and female die, guided by cameras reading the printed marks, punches out each card with rounded corners.
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Add hologram and panel
After inspection, a hologram of metallized polyester and a signature panel go on the surface.
Goes in -
Mill and embed the chip
A cutter mills a shallow cavity in the finished card and a chip module is glued into it.
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Personalize and ship
The cardholder's name and number are added and the stripe and chip are encoded. Fulfillment attaches the card to its mailer.
Worth repeating
- In 1959, American Express was the first charge card operator to issue embossed plastic cards, which made manual imprinting faster and reduced errors.
- In 1972, Lloyds Bank issued the first bank card with an information-encoding magnetic strip and a PIN.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and credit card starts as these 23 raw sources.
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Sources
- Plastics Decorating: The card market, an introduction to process and materials
- ICMA: Card manufacturing, an ongoing evolution
- Payment card
- Polyvinyl chloride
Cite this page: "How credit cards are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/credit-card