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To echo my other comment: my chip broke on my debit card and the card refused to work with magstripe only (and it was broken in a way were the NFC thing also no longer functioned). So not sure if the magstripe has any functionality in the SEPA region based on that experience.

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I think the magstripe is disabled in my region, I've never managed to use it on any of my cards. I tried testing it out to see if it even was functional. Surely they must work as I've heard quite a few stories of card skimmers...

There is definitely a card number on the magstripe on it, but i think you cannot make a transaction with it in the SEPA region. So you need to "clone" that card and make a transaction with it in a non SEPA region country and that is disabled by default on debit cards (not credit cards though).

Banks can reject magstripe use when it knows both the card and the card reader should have chip support.

I believe this is to help discourage downgrade attacks.

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