Yesterday, I got into a discussion with someone who said he'd never accept a chip & pin card due to fraud liability and burden of proof issues. Pointing out that US law will not change (unless the govt acts) and that he uses an ATM card (pin only, no signature) didn't help.

Not that many US persons travel outside the US, so the demand may not be as large as you imagine.

You are absolutely correct in that the average American may not use it. That said, just because the average American may not use it does not mean that there is a not a large market for a chip and pin card. The article suggests "premium" cards would be the first to see chips. I'm willing to bet the percentage of people with premium cards who would want a chip and pin card is higher than that of the general population.

The person you have mentioned obviously isn't educated on the issue. A simple pamphlet from the bank would probably be enough to change his mind.

I've assumed that the problem was cost of the cards themselves.

Until recently it seems as if swipe-and-sign cards were accepted all over Europe. Now we are seeing some exceptions (primarily where there is no human attendant present) and press coverage, and consequently there is slow, slow movement toward making the cards available to Americans.

Except there's also a lot of Americans who travel outside the US as well.

According to the State Dept, 30% or 92 million Americans own US Passports today. Ninety-two million is a sizeable amount if you ask me, thats three times the population of Canada and almost the same as the entire population of Mexico.

Especially considering now our neighbors to the north and south have also began to switch to EMV, that's going to make it a lot more difficult for Americans who live near the border to buy and trade stuff with our two largest trading geographic trading partners. And believe me, there's A LOT of international commerce that goes between Canada-US-Mexico via credit cards.


I understand there's a cost involved in making the cards, but why not then give a paid option to those that travel the most? What sense does it make for cards like AMEX Centurion or the numerous frequent flyer co-branded credit cards to NOT have EMV in them? You'd think that'd be the first place to be implemented. :rolleyes:

I'm sure a lot of people here would be willing to pay $20 extra for a single card that has everything on it to have the added convenience that the card willwork everywhere instead of theoretically accepted everywhere. :rolleyes:

You're looping. Give it a rest.

Recently, at John Lewis in the UK, I was refused the use of my non-chip US-issued Visa/MC/Amex credit cards. They had some sort of new policy of only allowing chip/pin cards to be used. After the director of security for the store relented, I was allowed swipe/sign use of one of my cards via the magnetic stripe reader. By the way, a magnetic stripe reader is attached to every register in the store. :td: to John Lewis.

Sadly, you’re not alone when facing this issue. The truth of the matter is, while VISA, MC, and AMEX state that merchants should accept them when they carry the logo, the reality is the exact opposite because most of these retailers are staffed by non-career workers that don’t stay long at a single place.

Majority of these retailers are made up by frontline staff who aren’t expected to understand the complexity of credit cards. All they follow is a SOP manual that is made for the majority of their customers, not customers from the US who carries outdated credit cards that nobody knows how to process anymore. Merchants don’t see any incentive to reprimand them because majority of these workers would quit as soon as school starts or when they go off to find better, more stable careers. From their POV, why should they spend precious time and money to non-career workers to teach them how to process payments for mag-stripe only card-holders which at most could be less than 1% of their customer base? It’s not worth it.

The same holds true for our workers at our retailers. I’ve seen frontline employees at BestBuy refuse JCB cards because they’ve never heard of it even though it can be processed through the Discover Network, (likewise the same in Japan where frontline employees would refuse an American with a Discover card even though it can be processed through the JCB network in Japan). Taco Bell employees would refuse to let customers pay by PayPass because “we don’t know how it’s supposed to work.” Heck, some of McDonald’s frontline employees can’t even give me correct change, I wouldn’t expect them to know anything transaction fees or token ring encryption. On our end it’s the exact opposite: why should retailers spend precious time and money to train non-career employees how to process obscure payments that at most consist less than 1% of their core customer base?

VISA, MC, and AMEX may try to hide this issue under the rug by making statements like that, but reality is different. Sooner or later they’re going to get hit by ever mounting frustrations of Americans who are facing trouble paying for their goods abroad with non-chipped US credit cards.

The payed option for someone who has a need for it would work out well for both the card user and the credit card company who could stand to make a buck.

The staff at John Lewis told me that they had been told specifically not to accept non chip&pin cards. The problem I ran into was one of store policy, not of training. This was confirmed by the store's security manager.

Point taken, but in this case it clearly exemplifies that the mass retailers overseas can and will make up any rules as they wish with regards to not accept swipe 'n sign but only chip 'n pin.

Oh sure VISA, MC, and AMEX's website states that you can report a merchant that's not in compliance, but the chances they're going to take action against a large mass retailer such as John Lewis is nill. Why would VISA, MC, and AMEX risk losing money by reprimanding John Lewis just because "some American with an outdated credit card which makes up less than 1% of the retailer's normal customer base?"

At best they'll just send you a stock apology and "advise" someone in the maze of the corporate ladder at John Lewis, but they're not going to be stupid enough to revoke John Lewis' license to use VISA, MC, or AMEX. To them, you're an anomaly. John Lewis OTOH is a company that brings them millions in transaction fees from Brits who own chipped VISAs, MCs, and AMEXs.

Heck Carrefour (the Wal-Mart of France) can make an announcement tomorrow on a whim and state "we're not going to accept non-chipped cards anymore." American card holder's loss because we're not their core customer base and I'm sure as certain not VISA, MC, nor AMEX would be willing to suspend Carrefour because of that policy.



Aside from that matter, Gemalto, the world's leading company that issues EMV cards, has recently created a special website where people in the US who have faced troubles using their US issued cards abroad can voice out their frustrations so as to entice more US financial institutions to look at the matter more seriously.

I suggest anyone here on FT who has faced issues using their US based mag-stripe cards to voice out their concerns there: http://www.getfluentc.com

I had no trouble using a swipe card at Waitrose, which is owned by John Lewis, as recently as last month. While it would be convenient to have a USA-issued Chip & PIN card for use when travelling, it's inaccurate to describe swipe cards as outdated. Chip & PIN is an experiment, and not even all major European card issuers have adopted it. (See Diners Club UK ). I believe UK regulations require merchants to have the capability to process payments without a PIN to accomodate those with disabilities.

Also on that page:

"If any Diners Club Cardholders have an issue regarding acceptance they should urge the merchant to insert the card into the terminal and follow the prompts. The machine will automatically request a signature. "

The question isn't whether merchants are meant to accept non-chip+pin, the question is whether they do. All the CC companies and banks refuse to even address the issue of stand-alone machines which do not accept mag-stripe cards. You cannot "urge" a machine to do anything.

I think this problem is getting bigger: 88 posts on the NY Times article about American travelers' problems using non-chip cards overseas:

link to NYT Article: http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/08/29...l?pagewanted=2

At least on the good news is that according to the article, both VISA and Mastercard had begun to realize the seriousness of this issue and trying to push US banks to re-consider their stance.

"representatives from Visa and MasterCard e-mailed me statements saying they’re working with issuers to evaluate the feasibility of offering cards with the chip technology to customers who travel internationally."

Big :td: to Ms. Fish at AMEX though

"Desiree Fish, a spokeswoman for American Express, said the company doesn’t plan to add the chip technology to cards issued in the United States at this time. But she emphasized that customers should be able to use their magnetic stripe cards abroad, even if a clerk tells them they cannot.

“A card member can insist that, yes, in fact, they can swipe the card,” Ms. Fish said.

Of course, communicating with store employees who may not speak English isn’t always easy"

Yeah, unfortunately, you can't force a machine to accept a mag-stripe if it isn't equipped with it ma'am.

I was recently on a 2-week vacation in Norway (mostly western Norway, but first 1.5 days and last half-day in the greater Oslo area). I had no problem using my credit cards at restaurants anywhere, except one restaurant only took Visa (luckily I had one on me) and one or two relatively inexpensive restaurants only took cash. I had no problem at grocery stores, a Boots (drug store), or a jewelry/etc store where I bought "watch" batteries (for my older camera that uses that type), or on handheld machines the ferry fare collectors used, or on the hotel airport shuttle at OSL on the bus itself.

However, I could not make my card work at any automated kiosk if my life depended on it. The hotel airport shuttle machines (if I wanted to get the ticket while waiting for the bus) just said "card read error" for every one of my cards. The gas stations just said "enter pin" obstinately and refused to take "0000" or "9999" or any other random number I tried. And one gas station (a Shell about 10 km from OSL) even didn't have the ability to turn the pump on from inside the store and then liet me swipe to pay; if they had a way to pay with a chip-less card, the clerk had no clue about it. (But forunately he referred me to a Statoil station closer to the airport, where I had no problems paying inside.)

It matters not what the UK laws are if you aren't in the UK. And Norway is not in the EU either, and neither is Switzerland, etc. And it matters not what clerks can do if a gas station is closed except for automated credit card machines. So there's more to worry about than just the UK, just EU countries, and just stores with clerks.

Interesting article in today's (Sunday) New York Times travel section on the chip card issue (go down about halfway for the chip stuff) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/tr...20cards&st=cse

Note the while the online date is Aug. 24 it is in the Aug. 29 print edition--at least the one I got outside NYC.

PS: now I see a link was posted to this story above. In any event, here is some of the pertinent parts of the story:

As for whether banks plan to offer chip and PIN credit cards to their American customers, Mr. Shevlin said the cost of issuing new cards is a hurdle, especially given the banking industry’s other financial challenges.

“It should be more of a concern among card issuers than it is,” he said. “But I would not expect to see a lot of movement before the end of 2011.”

There is one financial institution that is moving more quickly: the United Nations Federal Credit Union, which plans to offer its members credit cards with both a magnetic stripe and a chip beginning in October.

Merrill Halpern, card services manager for the credit union, said that with Canada and Mexico now embracing chip and PIN cards, along with Europe and many other parts of the world, it was time to make the switch. Another motivation is that the chip and PIN cards are more secure because there is a unique key encrypted in every card, whereas magnetic stripe cards are relatively easy to clone — that is, to steal the data and copy it onto another card.

“It’s going to save us money on fraud losses,” Mr. Halpern said. “The trend seems to be that more fraud is coming to the U.S. because we’re the one last holdout in magnetic stripe cards.”

Despite that concern, the major credit card companies do not have imminent plans to offer chip and PIN cards to their American customers, even though they provide them to cardholders abroad. When I asked about this topic, representatives from Visa and MasterCard e-mailed me statements saying they’re working with issuers to evaluate the feasibility of offering cards with the chip technology to customers who travel internationally.

Desiree Fish, a spokeswoman for American Express, said the company doesn’t plan to add the chip technology to cards issued in the United States at this time. But she emphasized that customers should be able to use their magnetic stripe cards abroad, even if a clerk tells them they cannot.