tmiw

BTW, more information about EMV is in this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...re-2017-a.html

I don't find it shameful to have to sign for stuff. Kind of a pain, maybe. (Also, I suspect Canada sees enough American cards where the staff doesn't even give it a second thought. YMMV elsewhere, of course.)

It's all about money. There's simply not enough fraud from people losing their physical cards to justify the effort--especially since cards can be easily deactivated and replaced via online banking, mobile apps or even by calling the issuer. It was a much different story in Europe for example where most transactions weren't authorized in real time (and thus fraud couldn't be caught immediately). I doubt concerns about people forgetting their PINs would stop the banks if they could get some significant cost savings from implementing it.

And really, since we're moving towards cashier-less stores and online shopping anyway, chip itself probably won't have that long of a lifetime. Even long term use of NFC and/or contactless cards may be questionable. Here's an example of what I mean:


There's a full list here of "true" chip and PIN cards that are known by FT. I don't really count cards like the Arrival+ as true chip and PIN because signature's still asked for when possible.

Also, I have a few of the cards on that list and frankly, they're more of a hassle to use in the US than my chip and signature cards. Most places are fine but my spending habits take me to a lot of restaurants and other smaller businesses where they don't see many PIN cards and aren't set up to easily accept it. I've even had a few merchants flat out demand another form of payment instead of trying to hand the terminal to me.

Contactless cards used to be more common but they're now considered (possibly wrongly) by a lot of people to be highly insecure. Combined with the points above and the poor retailer acceptance, most banks don't really see spending the additional money per card (vs. the cost of an EMV card without contactless) as worthwhile. Encouraging stuff like Apple Pay is probably a better bet for them.

sethweinstein

"Signature of shame" is a bit strong, but I agree with the OP's point. I do feel a tiny bit of "here we go again" every time I insert my US card in a non-US terminal and I know I'm going to be outed as American when the signature slip emerges. The merchant is expecting me to punch some numbers into the terminal, but surprise...it's something special just for us Americans whose banks can't be bothered to go along with the rest of the world. I don't like to be the asterisk; I like to blend in.

(I guess I get outed anyway if a DCC option comes up, but that I can blame on the merchant's bank. Though the same principle applies: The process should be the same for everyone.)

In Holland I paid for a hotel and the hotelier said, "I like this card! No code!"

Seth

tmiw

The US isn't the only country that uses signature with the chip, actually, although it's probably the largest in terms of population (source). It's probably also the country more likely to use cards than others, too; I suspect that a fair number of signature using countries are still predominantly cash based anyway (Mexico, for example).

livebetter_travelmore

I, myself, have never run into the scenario you describe where a US merchant/restaurant refused a PIN card. They presumably just swipe instead; hence no hassle for me. I've only been to one US restaurant where they did use the chip and provided me the terminal to enter my PIN (and without complaint).

That aside, I'd much prefer the adoption of systems like Apple Pay and Android Pay by more merchants in the US. Because Europe, Canada and Australia have had PIN (and moreover, contactless) terminals for a while, it's been great to simply use my phone to make purchases there. There are lots of US merchants that finally moved to accepting EMV cards and even have the terminal hardware to support contactless, but refuse acceptance of Apple Pay and Android Pay. Some even accepted Apple Pay upon getting the new terminal readers and then shortly after disabled it. I've read speculation this is because the merchant wants to track the spending habits of customers, but given that Apple Pay and Android Pay generate unique numbers per transaction, they're unable to do that. That theory confuses me as I've read that chip-and-pin also perform a tokenization mechanism, but clearly merchants are accepting those (mostly). Perhaps there are technical nuances that differentiate those mechanisms. I'm actually surprised in the number of places I routinely visit in the US that still require the purchaser to swipe, sometimes even when you can clearly see they've upgraded their hardware with a slot for sliding the card for the chip.

Sopwith

I can definitively tell you that (4) worked for me this past week in Oregon and Washington.

IluvSQ

Just googled this, and both MasterCard.ca and TD Bank say this is the
correct method.Thank you.

Tyler2017

It is because the merchant went to the setup page of the credit card terminal and set the "EMV support" to "false" or "off". In fact, I heard that all of the credit card terminals here in the U.S. are required by federal law to allow the merchant the option to disable EMV. This is part of our consumer protection laws here, and most merchants and the media are instead lying that the slow adoption of EMV stems from certification delays/backlogs when that backlog has already been cleared already.

There are no terminals out there that are still undergoing certifications, even in the United States. End of story.

tmiw

Most table-service restaurants haven't implemented chip support at all, but the ones that have almost never have wireless terminals or do anything else other than take cards away and bring them back--at least around here, anyway. The best case scenario is that you'll be asked to follow the server to the back to enter said PIN and the tip amount.

Counter service/fast food places, on the other hand, have tended to implement chip support at higher rates. Some of those hide their terminals or put them out of reach of customers, unfortunately. If you're lucky, they'll know how to force the terminal to allow the card to be swiped or know how to manually enter the card number if the terminal requires a PIN.

Interchange fees in the US are fairly high relative to other Western countries. I suspect that most businesses vastly prefer cash over cards as a result and would continue to be cash only if it weren't for customers demanding to use cards. This also means that they aren't really going to go out of their way to implement stuff people aren't using; I don't really see people paying with their phones all that often even at the stores that support it.

(Of course, if fees were lowered, /r/churning and FT's credit card forums would likely not be pleased.)

I'm going to need a source for that assertion. As far as I know, the federal government has not mandated anything related to EMV.

Maybe with EMVco certification of the terminals themselves, but a lot of stores still need to have their entire setups certified by the major card brands. I find it difficult to believe that stores spent significant amounts of money buying new equipment before the normal replacement period (and while the older stuff was still supported) only to decide that they didn't want to take advantage of any new functionality.

livebetter_travelmore

Do you know why the merchants selected "False"? Is it maybe the default? Sheer ignorance? Given that the banking laws were updated clearly stating that merchants would have to (solely?) bear the cost of fraudulent cards if they didn't adopt EMV, it's bewildering to me. I've talked to employees of stores where they're still just swiping who know that, so it's difficult to comprehend why mgmt or owners don't address that.

tmiw

I don't think anyone can answer those questions in a general sense. It really depends on the merchant's individual situation more than anything else.

Tyler2017

It's because they think EMV is too slow and that the customers will have panic attacks from the inability to swipe or see their cards being swiped. And note that most Americans do not know how to use their EMV enabled cards without assistance, so that's a major problem to contend with.

Tyler2017

Also note that EMV is a luxury feature, and thus many merchants are unwilling to pay the extra fees to get EMV support for their credit card terminals.

tmiw

Many major retailers enabled EMV anyway despite how it performs and a lot of the rest could easily continue with the "reader device on the side" (where said reader could easily be chip-capable) way of doing things if they wanted. Considering how many installed customer-facing equipment, I doubt they were worried about people being unable to insert their own cards either.

Contactless (which has low use in the US) is possibly a luxury feature. Something that's effectively required to not be liable for fraudulent charges isn't.

invisible

It is feature of the card (or issuing card's institution), is not it?
I can tell that two US issued cards (both from Chase) and five Singapore issued cards (from three different banks) which are chip and signature do not have PIN as optional/second method.

I had above experience with my US/Singapore issued cards at gas stations in NZ and train machines in Europe outside of airports and major train stations. Machine asks to enter PIN and no matter what you enter, transaction is failed.

Peoriaman1

Oh, no, don't do that! Then they'll KNOW you're a rube!