How prepaid cards activation works

Question

I am looking for some good technical overview of how prepaid cards work. This post provides some basic answers but I would like to learn more.

I am helping with a project where we are going to be issuing prepaid cards that end users will use to pay for services. We don’t plan on using any third party processor. We will write our own software.

Can anyone point me to some technical resources so that I can learn more about industry standards? Some of my questions are:

• What are standard scheme for the account number?

• Barcode: Do they play any role in the card activation? Isn’t it just a code to look up the item at the Point of Sale?

• Card activation: Is there more to it than validating that the account number exists in the database and has not been validated before etc.?

• Unlock the PIN: Is this the same as flagging the account has been activated?

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

1. The account number can be anything. Just don't use a simple incrementing number, such that it's trivial to guess account numbers.
2. The barcode serves as a sort of UPC for the card, though it'll have both the account number, and identifying information saying "this is a card for retailer X, in the amount of $Y"
3. The pin prevents someone from simply scanning the barcodes in bulk and "stealing" the amounts. Without the account number AND the pin, the card cannot be activated. Generally the pin is printed on the card under a scratch-off strip, or is otherwise hidden under packaging so that it can't be read without very obvious "damage" to the card or packaging.