There are actually two answers to your question, depending on whether you mean, “When did UW ID cards become debit cards?” or “When did UW ID/debit cards take on the name Wiscard?” The answers are slightly different, and to find them, we’ll have to get into a time machine (or — shout-out to grads of a certain era — TYME machine) and travel back a few decades. In the 1970s, the UW adopted photo ID cards for students, faculty, and staff. In January 1994, the UW figured out how to merge IDs and debit cards by adding (in the language of Wisconsin Week, the campus newspaper) a “high-coercivity cash value vending stripe” to the backs of those cards. Students could add cash to their card account at “encoder” machines in any of 22 locations around campus. They could then spend that money to make copies and to purchase time in library computer labs. In fall 1996, the Union created the WISCARD program to turn ID cards into more fully functional debit cards. Today, the Wiscard Office is located at Union South, where it continues to provide ID and debit services, though with six fewer capital letters.