
The EMV chip credit card transition in the US has been a disaster - chewymouse
http://qz.com/717876/the-chip-card-transition-in-the-us-has-been-a-disaster/
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korginator
I'm amazed at how EMV chip technology which has been in use in my country for
over a decade, with chip based transactions being the de-facto mode, became a
"disaster" in the US. Banks have started issuing chip-only cards, and several
retailers don't use magstripe any more. ATM cards too are chip-based for
several years.

This "disaster" in the US appears more like a case of poor education and
training than a problem with chip cards themselves.

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erikpukinskis
For me the biggest issue is the speed. I have to sit and wait for maybe 30
seconds while the transaction is processed.

I believe the issue is that many vendors here have old card readers that are
slow. It's not just a training issue.

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walrus01
All of this FUD about bars and restaurants is a solved problem in Canada,
where almost everyone uses Interac chip and pin cards. There are lots of
hardware choices of portable wireless chip and pin terminals for restaurant
use.

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resoluteteeth
Articles like this ("chip cards are annoying and they're pointless because we
aren't using pins") keep coming out lately, but I think it's important to
consider two facts.

1) The user experience is mostly only bad because it's not clear whether
terminals accept the chips or not. Once everyone has chip cards this will be a
nonissue.

2) Chip and pin cards in Europe have had serious problems with attacks that
make it possible to use a small device between the card and terminal to use
stolen cards without knowing the pin, making the whole pin system fairly
pointless.

Chip cards still provide a lot of security, and chip+signature allows
restaurants to continue the system where waiters take the card to terminal
away from the table.

Anyway, in my opinion the bigger issue is that chip cards do nothing to secure
internet transactions. This is sort of a shame, but it would require much more
effort on the part of the credit card processors, merchants, and banks to fix.

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tdkl
> continue the system where waiters take the card to terminal away from the
> table.

There are portable POS terminals you know. Most of the time the portable
device is used first for ordering, where the waiter enters the order, kitchen
receives it and the billing software makes the receipt ready. When the guest
is ready to pay, he uses the card right beside the guest.

Btw, this existed in EU for years now.

~~~
superuser2
Yeah, Americans restaurants could easily (and cheaply) have adopted Square
years ago. They are just very resistant to change and not inclined to spend
their already thin margins or take risks on technology.

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jalk
I remember the first chip terminals in Denmark as being annoyingly slow. This
was probably 5 years ago. Today they are as fast as swiping. Rollout of nfc
based cards /terminals has been going on for 10 months or so, and those are
super snappy, don't know about security implications though.

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jimrandomh
I live in Massachusetts, and the stores near me have recently switched from
accepting swipe cards to using chips (in the same cards). It's worse, for
silly reasons. With a swipe card, you can swipe any time while the cashier is
scanning your items, then after they finish scanning they indicate they're
done and then it asks you to confirm the result. With a chip card, if you
insert the card before the cashier is done scanning, it won't work; it'll give
an error and you have to take it out and reinsert it after they finish. On top
of which there's also a ~20% read error rate.

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woliveirajr
Have to wait to finish to insert the card and type the pin is just a matter of
design of the equipment: you can insert it as any time of the supplier designs
it that way.

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Tibbes
_Insert_ it any time, yes, possibly.

 _Remove_ it at any time, no. The chip on the card is cryptographically
signing the transaction, which includes the total. It can't sign it until the
total is known.

In practice, I suspect the equipment is designed not to allow you to insert
the card early so that you check the total first.

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woliveirajr
In Brazil, probably all cards have chip and chip+PIN has become universal. It
works great:

\- it's as fast as swyping and signing;

\- there are portable terminals using gsm, so no waiter has to take your card
far from you (yes, take a photo of your card from front and back and go
shopping online!)

\- there is competition among the providers: you can stick to the company that
will have a smaller fee providing you the equipment.

When used my card in travels to the USA, found it funny to have to swype: the
magnetic strip is easily damaged (and wouldn't work sometimes) and the
"signature" on those equipments were laughable, since you sign whatever you
want.

In Europe, don't remember to have swiped my card. But the PIN had some problem
(and had the same in the USA with chip+pin): cards can have 4 or 6 digits inn
Brazil, but there were room for just 4. Sometimes it works if you type just
the first 4, some countries you type the last 4.

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kylehotchkiss
"Critics have told me that banks opted for a signature versus a PIN code
because it saves them large amounts of money by not having to store PIN codes
for everyone."

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qq66
PINs are very costly because every time someone forgets one, you need to do an
identity verification which usually depends on a human employee of the bank.

~~~
nocha
I'm in the UK and I forgot my credit card pin a few years back. Getting it
sorted was as simple as phoning an automated phone number, entering my card
details and they then posted a new pin to the address they had on file. I
highly doubt there was a single human involved in the entire process, and it
was probably just an add to their lost card procedures.

