Many monetary transactions are performed using a plastic card with a data carrying magnetic stripe. Examples are credit cards, debit cards, telephone calling cards, ATM cards and gift cards. There are other transactions (non-monetary included) that use such electromagnetically read plastic cards.
The problems with such plastic cards include piracy and identity theft. The British Broadcasting Corporation reports card cloning or “skimming” has doubled in the United Kingdom in the past year with the resulting thefts up to millions of dollars. See “How Credit Cards Get Cloned”, news.bbc.co.uk, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001.