D582

I'm not familiar with Android Pay - is there way to tell on the phone if its EMV-Mode vs. MSD-Mode Contactless? (i.e. like on Apple Pay where the amount appears right away before receiving the push notification). Or, are you relying on the receipt? I have encountered the odd place that does not properly include the EMV information on the receipt.

A few factors that have made this the reality:

1. Need for customer-facing equipment/PIN pads everywhere. Although EMV brought PIN to credit cards, Interac debit cards have always required a PIN, dating back the its launch in the 1990s. And Interac debit has always been popular. Therefore, having PIN pads was always a requirement.

2. Most merchants lease their terminals and PIN pads from their processor (Moneris being the largest). Therefore, they simply receive new equipment as the processors go through upgrade cycles.

3. Almost all merchants use stand-alone equipment, or have PIN pads connected through a semi-integration layer. They are not responsible for dealing with any payment processing in their POS software, don't have to deal with communication to the PIN pad, don't have to deal with the payment application on the PIN pad. This has allowed their POS to be removed from PCI scope and EMV certification (usually a merchant will go through a very limited certification process with their payment processor, which is more to confirm that their POS can interact with the semi-integration layer through an API/interface). And when PIN pads were replaced with contactless-enabled models, this usually required no software change on the merchant's side.

Only some of the larger, usually American retailers (like Wal-Mart, Home Depot etc.) use fully-integrated setups.

4. Almost all credit cards and most debit cards are contactless now, and people want to use them. Therefore, merchants want to ensure they have up-to-date equipment to support that. And since that doesn't usually require them to actually buy anything, it's easy.

Very simple: no EMV = no Interac debit.

The irony with this is Wal-Mart Canada's branded MasterCard has contactless, and you will see people there try to tap and get frustrated when it doesn't work.

D582

There are no CVM waivers in Canada for chip transactions. Only for contactless now.

emmanuel_t

I was in Canada last year and only saw iSC250 and i6550 at Walmart (I went to three different stores). Nothing from Verifone. IIRC the UI was the same, with an itemised list on the PIN pad.

AllieKat

Apple Pay has MAJOR problems in the US I'm learning with declined transactions. Same with physical contactless cards. Five Guys and McDonald's both cause MBNA cards to decline (physical tap or Apple Pay). MBNA told me McDonald's flagged the transaction as magnetic stripe, not contactless, thus why they declined.

This is a mess. An absolute mess.

tmiw

I haven't had problems at McDonald's. Then again, I haven't re-added any Visa or MC cards recently.

D582

This is not a new problem. For years I have had declined contactless transactions at US merchants with payWave cards because they would code as magnetic stripe entry instead of MSD contactless and therefore the CVV would be wrong.

What's more disconcerting is US issuers are approving miscoded transactions.

jamar

Not all of them- Barclaycard, back when the Ring was contactless, wouldn't work for buying transit tickets at PDX, and they told me it was because every time I tapped they were sending the wrong CVV, because I was tapping it but they were flagging it as magstripe.

storewanderer

The Wal Mart EMV in Canada worked fairly similar to the US. The screen was the same except there was an amount ok prompt and I touched the green yes on the screen to get that to pass. So the screens are touchscreen but no signature pen is present since they don't take many signatures.

Found another merchant with signs up that say ID is required with all signature credit cards; this one was an IGA Store in downtown Vancouver a block from the H-Mart last night with similar signs. I decided to test this and I inserted my card instead of using Android Pay. The transaction completed and the cashier handed me the receipt then noticed the signature slip that printed out and said "oh you have to sign this" and I signed it and that was that. I guess their sign about ID is meaningless.

Also tried to Insert the physical card at McDonalds; there too, had to sign for a $1.77 transaction. Paper slip and they had to go looking for a pen.

Pretty bad experience using these "Chip and Signature" cards. Why couldn't we get PIN again? Or at least Tap? The US is really a joke. I find it ironic these card companies are US entities yet their card processing is so much better outside the US.

NYCFlyer10001

A $1.77 transaction should be no CVM. McDonalds' insistence on not supporting no CVM isn't the card network's fault.

tmiw

Only for contactless in Canada. He used EMV for that one.

tmiw

All of that's been rehashed repeatedly in both threads but it boils down to:

1. There's no law forcing issuers to do PIN and there's no financial benefit for them either.
2. Contactless payment infrastructure is still pretty weak (and will likely be so for a pretty long time).
3. A cultural resistance to contactless payment on the part of consumers.

Speaking of point #3, this article has the following gem:

Until that's fixed, I don't see people really using phones to pay, either.

NYCFlyer10001

Is there some rule prohibiting Canadian merchants from choosing to use no CVM for contact EMV? I can't imagine such a thing could exist; merchants and acquirers should be able to set their floor limits to whatever they want.

emmanuel_t

Even if they have the ability to set a floor limit, it isn't worth the effort to implement if the vast majority of your customers use PIN-preferring cards.

tmiw

Visa/MC did use to do it IIRC. I think there's now some sort of law up there preventing it, but I could be wrong on that.

Some merchant processors operate in both the US and Canada and likely had similar policies for both countries. As mentioned above, it's some sort of law/policy thing preventing it now.

reclusive46

The Canadian banks seemed to essentially just copy the UK setup. I've seen no CVM for signature cards in Canada and the UK but never on a PIN preferring card.