Originally Posted by
zaben
A few pages back there was some discussion on problems with some credit union cards defaulting to chip+sig when chip+pin is possible. So I emailed PenFed and asked if they could configure their cards to default to chip+pin first instead of chip+sig. Their reply is:
"Our Credit Card department has advised that PenFed cannot change the authorization configuration. It is the merchant's discretion as to what the method they choose to attempt first when processing an authorization for a PenFed chip credit card."
Essentially it depends on how each individual machine is configured and used.
Originally Posted by
cbn42
So does that mean that merchants in Europe are configured to check for signature first and then PIN only if signature fails? Considering that PIN is standard in Europe, I'm not buying that. But who knows.
I haven't cared enough to actually read the standard, but according to Wikipedia the terminal reads the CVM list (card holder verification method list) from the card and the order of the list gives a priority to the different methods. I conjecture that US issued chip-and-sig cards have the CVM list:
- Signature
- Online PIN
- No CVM required
and US issued chip-and-pin have
- Signature
- Online PIN
- Offline PIN
- No CVM required
and EU issued chip-and-pin have
- Online PIN
- Offline PIN
- Signature
- No CVM required
so signature verification can still be performed in backward countries and cards issued in the US defaults to signature verification.
Merchants pick the first applicable method, so a US issued chip-and-pin will result in signature verification for most transactions. If a US card prioritizes PIN methods, then you would have to use the PIN for transactions in the US and no US issuer wants that (no idea why, but I guess PIN is taboo in the US).