Originally Posted by
Concorde69
Do any US credit cards have the pin # feature? My Capital One Visa requires setting up a pin # when you activate it, but I don't know if this is for the same reason as mentioned in the forum.
The PIN you set up for your card is so that you can use it for cash withdrawals.
In the past Target Visa, AmexEx Blue, and Providian issued cards with a smart chip (which was not compatible with the European chip system), but they discontinued them some years ago. As far as I know, no US issuer currently offers a chip card.
The "chip and pin" discussion refers to cards with embedded smart chips which require entering a PIN into a card reader in order to complete a purchase, in much the same way you would be required to enter a PIN when using a US debit card processed as a PIN transaction rather than a credit transaction. US credit cards, however, do not require a PIN when making a purchase.