Of course not. But that segment accounts for an outsized portion of their volume.

I'm in UK now and am fed up with the situation. Seems I need to insert my card into the chip slot first, then have it reject it, THEN the magnetic reader activates. I'm tired of having to explain this to clerks. It'd be much worse if I didn't speak the language of the country I'm visiting, like will be the case in Turkey this Summer.

Each year I travel it gets worse and worse. Now the majority of cashiers, who are almost always young, have never dealt with anything but chip and pin.

I just got fed up dealing with it all and started paying for everything in cash.

ps, I did find a Coke machine that did swipe only. I was shocked (didn't try it though)

Write a letter to your credit card company. It's the only way they'll listen. And seems like it's working as more and more articles are showing up that US card companies are finally "getting" that this is a serious issue.

If this bothers anybody enough there is a solution. Just open an account with any bank in the Channel Islands, Canada, France or anywhere else that easily allows non-residents to have accounts. Then get a debit (and credit if you want it and qualify) card and go on your merry way.

Many people think foreign ers cannot open accounts in European countries. At least in France and the tax shelter countries it is quite easy to do so. of course you must leave some money there also.

France! I hadn't thought of France. Here's an example from LCL. It looks like it's about the same as the offshore guys; it'll run you about $100/yr to get a debit card and Internet access. The paperwork seems a bit much, but that's the French for you :)

France is actually easy. You need your passport, some money to transfer (don't use a check) and a few papers. No taxes either when you make the non-resident declaration.

From looking at the instructions on the form at the link above, they want a lot of papers, and they all pretty much have to be certified by your local bank. "Easy" is relative, but the offshore banks are, um, "easier" ...

Anyway, thanks for calling attention to France as a place for non-resident banking.

This varies by merchant. I always hand my card to the assistant and simply say "My card has no Chip." They always figure it out.

Keep in mind that Canadian debit cards cannot be used overseas for POS transactions, only to access cash at ATMs.

CIBC has begun issuing a co-branded Interac/Visa Debit card that can be used overseas, but it is the only one available.

Ultimately you'll end up paying for the foreign exchange conversion, so I can't see how obtaining a Canadian account would be of any benefit.

If the travel takes place in the Euro zone all Eurozone issued cards have no FX charges anywhere within the Euro zone but can have outside the Euro zone.

My Euro cards issued by Crédit Agricole, have a 1.99% FX fee outside the Eurozone. There is a wide variety of annual fees and other charges, as there is elsewhere.

That is my thing with these offshore banking ideas. Most accounts i have seen seem to be so fee ridden that you might be better off getting the equally fee ridden travelex card, at least you do not have to go through the hassel of paper work. I will say at least after looking at banking options overseas, the fees for US based accounts seem not that bad.

Also how do you open accounts in Canada, I have tried calling other banks their and they all say canadian residents only?

It's a one-time thing, rather than an ongoing thing. YMMV.

I believe finally the tide is turning towards more increased demand for EMV in the US.

Card fraud is increasing here and starting to hurt banks with their 100% no-liability guarantee starting to backfire against them. I'm sure that the ticket agent who got arrested for skimming $480,000 at SJC must've been a real eye-opener to many on how easy this stuff is to do as we continue to rely on fifty year old mag-stripe technology. And because so it's easy to do, organized crime, theives, crooks, and gangs are turning to this way to skim off card info from just a few hundred investment of equipment off of eBay

And recently it seems VISA began to put extra pressure for a push towards EMV by offering Merchant incentives to switch to EMV terminals by exempting those who comply with EMV processing terminals to be exempted from hefty annual PCI-DSS compliant fees. The catch? It's not offered to US merchants. But I'm sure this is to raise serious eyebrows for US merchants to consider to just pay an one-time upgrade of their terminals instead of being dinged with annual compliance fees because they continue to process it through fifty year old technology :D

Perhaps we'll finally be able to get our credit cards updated to EMV standards sooner than we thought. Just a year ago we had zero option, at least we now have the Travelex Chip & PIN card. That's a good start IMO.

During the last weeks there has been much increased effort by some industry manufacturers of EMV complaint plastic to push the US for adoption. Both MC and V are anxious to have it happen to have a common global standard again, among other reasons, and also to have adequate capacity for new services.

IMHO the new services may win the day, because the chip offers lots of unused capacity for POS customization and other features.

Oh definitely. A chip can store much more info securely than a fifty year old mag-stripe. The ability to store more data like frequent flyer numbers, flyer status, lounge membership info, along with your bank account information allows less redundant cards to carry in your already overblown wallet. Not only that, but by incorporating all said info in one card allows for more flexibility for potential promotions like elite members earning 1.5 mi per dollar spent as opposed to 1 mi, or the card automatically knowing what you need to pay for your club renewal based on your airlines’ elite status.

It’ll be a huge cost savings to said companies that have to issue their own membership cards when they can just have it incorporated into a single IC chipped card that their partner financial institution issues. Why do we need an Admirals Club card, an AA Executive Platinum card, and an AA Citibank World Elite Mastercard? Those three can just be incorporated into a single chipped card that stores all those info securely.

Is the Chip & PIN perfect? No and nothing is perfect, anyone can open a vault in the bank if you use a bunch of C4 :D But at least Chip & PIN is way more secure than a fifty year old mag-stripe that’s for sure. And judging by the way it’s looking, Chip & PIN is becoming a de facto global standard in processing payment. It just doesn’t make sense to put faith on a fifty year old technology which is becoming extinct in other places around the world.