This will slow things down at some places such as 7-11 and Starbucks. It bugs me when I'm in line behind someone using a credit card and an affinity card. There's all this waiting, and pointing and clicking, and signing. Plus the additional delays caused by cloud-hosted point of sale systems. A cash sale takes about ten seconds.
I'll be the non-US person to point it out this time: This is a US problem, not a credit card problem. In Oz, I've got both the store card and the credit card on my phone. The first gets scanned while the items are being processed. The second gets touched at the end and takes max 5 seconds till "approved". In the UK it's even faster.
Even that would be faster if the shop moved to the "insert cash or card, or select cashback amount" method popular in the UK rather than having to tap "card", "no cashback", "full amount" first (Oz / coles)
Actually, for the fastest system I know, see London Underground. For a while now you can tap your credit card instead of the usual Oyster and you'll get close to immediate access.
These days in the UK you simply touch your card to the reader, no PIN, no signature. It is definitely quicker than cash. Only works for under £30, above that value you have to put your PIN in.
There's all this waiting, and pointing and clicking, and signing.
Ok, I agree that it's a bit annoying when I have to wait a few seconds before the terminal will allow me to tap, but it's wait, what, signing?
In all seriousness, the problem you're describing is archaic terminals. Here in Canada I can't remember the last time I signed for a credit card transaction; I very rarely even have to enter my PIN. And it's much faster than paying cash.
Huh. Paying with card is way faster than counting cash unless you happen to have few items and even change easily available. Just 1. insert card, 2.enter pin, 3. ok amount.
In most places you would have done 1 and 2 while they are still scanning your items.
Then of course there are the old, slow machines that take half a minute to connect over some shitty gprs connection but those are only used by individual cloathing and jewelery merchants, not 7-11.
That used to be true, but in the USA the new card systems are way slower. You have to insert the card, it's not clear when it needs inserted, it asks all the time. Then you have to leave it there for a good while, then it asks to sign.
Cash, or android pay is way quicker. Or if you can find one a chipless credit card.
