Originally Posted by
aster
In the US the gov't is more geared towards protecting large corporations and making sure they're all comfortable and cosy rather than imposing upon them. Consumers come a very distant second compared to the corporate world.
The EU is different: people come before corporations.
But at the end of the day it should be in Visa/MC's interest to actually push this forward themselves on a voluntary basis. Sure it will be a great cost to move from magnetic stripe to chip-only, going from a disappearing card to portable payment terminals, but if they don't do this then Apple or Google will eventually step in with a new system that will take over. And when it does so in the US, just watch it spread like wildfire across the globe and put current card issuers in the back seat...
The US is switching to chip though. The point is that since we're only doing chip and not PIN there's no justification to do pay at the table using portable card readers like in other countries. And my current experience with using chip cards in US restaurants seems to be bearing this out thus far.