6 ms·

When I hear that the US still hasn't adopted chip+pin it sort of sounds unbelievable. This is the country that created VISA International, after all - a fantast

by swombat 10y ago

When I hear that the US still hasn't adopted chip+pin it sort of sounds unbelievable. This is the country that created VISA International, after all - a fantastic story chronicled in Dee Hock (founder of VISA)'s book. It seems like the financial industry in the US has taken giant strides backwards since then.

mixmastamyk 10y ago
Banking and tax returns in the US are still in the stone age too.
rconti 10y ago
NPR to the rescue: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/13/474135422/episode-695-put-a-chip-on-it http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/13/474135422/episo...
- scott_s 10y ago
  The answer (assuming this is the same story I wanted to reference) is that the credit card companies just considered the existing fraud to be a cost of doing business. Yes, instituting these new chips will lead to less fraud, but it also has a big cost. For a long time, they looked at these two costs, and went with the cost from fraud. Of course, that analysis ignores the very painful cost to consumers of identify theft, which is why I'm glad they're finally implementing a more secure system.
  - Mandatum 10y ago
    Hence why some giant businesses are run off COBOL and Excel documents. However given the affect of credit card theft on individuals I'd expect law enforcement/legislation to pass to require this.
theandrewbailey 10y ago
The US is filled with very large companies ("too big to fail", etc.). Outside of tech, every one of them is scared shitless at the thought of doing anything different (especially the banking industry), even if it has a proven record of making things better. It takes something very bad to light a fire under their asses and get them moving.
ck2 10y ago
My Target credit card has chip+pin (in USA) Yes, it requires a pin number. Though chip+pin does nothing for online fraud so I don't get it.
- URSpider94 10y ago
  Yeah, I just got my new Target card the other day and was thrilled to see it come with a PIN. After Target got thoroughly pwned a couple of years ago, I'm sure their security team have quite a bit of say in how things will run. Other companies won't take the risk of upsetting customers who can't use their card if they forget their PIN.
  - ck2 10y ago
    Ironically Target cards were the only safe cards when they got hacked. Visa/Mastercard is the one that took a hit.
giarc 10y ago
I'm in Canada and have had chip tech in cards for a number of years (5+ I'd say). We've since moved on to tap/swipe/wave which requires no pin but does have a transaction limit.
- vinay427 10y ago
  > We've since moved on to tap/swipe/wave which requires no pin This is growing in the US as well, which is why chip-and-PIN seems less helpful coming this late in the game to the US market. I'd much rather it be required that restaurants (among other merchants) use portable credit card readers like they do in Canada to keep cards in the hands of their owners.
  - giarc 10y ago
    The one thing I've seen in the states that I'd like to see here is pre-pay at the grocery line. I know Target has this, and I imagine others. Basically while the cashier is ringing up your groceries, you go through the process of paying and basically say "I agree to pay the amount of this purchase." Then when the cashier is finished, the payment is immediately processed and you are done. Saves 30-45 seconds for each customer.
- msbarnett 10y ago
  The EMV rollout in Canada started in 2007. The US banking sector is an ridiculously slow moving, technologically regressive cesspool, frankly. Their piggybacked debit system is a disaster compared to what we have here.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
Us companies camd up with all kinds of methods. Some deployee them. Consumers mostly rejected them for inconvenience and spotty merchant support. Banks rejected costly changes in favor of smarter move of paying off politicians to push largest liabilites on merchants while keeping theirs super-low. Chip and PIN itself got broken plenty by smart crooks unlike some other schemes. All in all, one would wonder why greedy banks in Europe weren't pulling same stuff or invested in tech with more problems. What American banks did made ton of sense given their evil and consumers' apathy. I was shocked at tge recent reversal to chip cards.
nwah1 10y ago
It's called infrastructural inertia. We had it first, so we have things implemented in legacy ways. Other countries get the benefit of "leapfrog development" or "second-mover advantage"
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  Bullshit. It might be true when it comes to copper lines, but not to credit card stuff. Most of the terminals must have at least a few generations of replacements already... In Europe we had pinless-magnetic-only-sign-here cards and the like and were getting rid of them ~ten years ago
miohtama 10y ago
I participated Payments Summit 2016 where they presented some hard numbers and you could also discuss with industry people. 50% of credit card fraud is 1st person fraud (you lie about the purchase yourself). Rest is online fraud, which is expected to go up with the chip and pin. The same happened in UK as crooks just moved to different liquidation methods of stolen credit cards. Stolen / copied card is actually the smallest part of the problem and banks estimate that cost of people forgetting their pin numbers is higher than the actual fraud. The estimate is that all fraud goes online until credit cards get tokenized CC numbers or time based CVV numbers (the card has a battery, LCD screen and CVV changes every few hours).

by swombat 10y ago

mixmastamyk 10y ago

Banking and tax returns in the US are still in the stone age too.

rconti 10y ago

NPR to the rescue: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/13/474135422/episode-695-put-a-chip-on-it http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/13/474135422/episo...

scott_s 10y ago
The answer (assuming this is the same story I wanted to reference) is that the credit card companies just considered the existing fraud to be a cost of doing business. Yes, instituting these new chips will lead to less fraud, but it also has a big cost. For a long time, they looked at these two costs, and went with the cost from fraud. Of course, that analysis ignores the very painful cost to consumers of identify theft, which is why I'm glad they're finally implementing a more secure system.
- Mandatum 10y ago
  Hence why some giant businesses are run off COBOL and Excel documents. However given the affect of credit card theft on individuals I'd expect law enforcement/legislation to pass to require this.

theandrewbailey 10y ago

The US is filled with very large companies ("too big to fail", etc.). Outside of tech, every one of them is scared shitless at the thought of doing anything different (especially the banking industry), even if it has a proven record of making things better. It takes something very bad to light a fire under their asses and get them moving.

ck2 10y ago

My Target credit card has chip+pin (in USA) Yes, it requires a pin number. Though chip+pin does nothing for online fraud so I don't get it.

URSpider94 10y ago
Yeah, I just got my new Target card the other day and was thrilled to see it come with a PIN. After Target got thoroughly pwned a couple of years ago, I'm sure their security team have quite a bit of say in how things will run. Other companies won't take the risk of upsetting customers who can't use their card if they forget their PIN.
- ck2 10y ago
  Ironically Target cards were the only safe cards when they got hacked. Visa/Mastercard is the one that took a hit.

giarc 10y ago

I'm in Canada and have had chip tech in cards for a number of years (5+ I'd say). We've since moved on to tap/swipe/wave which requires no pin but does have a transaction limit.

vinay427 10y ago
> We've since moved on to tap/swipe/wave which requires no pin This is growing in the US as well, which is why chip-and-PIN seems less helpful coming this late in the game to the US market. I'd much rather it be required that restaurants (among other merchants) use portable credit card readers like they do in Canada to keep cards in the hands of their owners.
- giarc 10y ago
  The one thing I've seen in the states that I'd like to see here is pre-pay at the grocery line. I know Target has this, and I imagine others. Basically while the cashier is ringing up your groceries, you go through the process of paying and basically say "I agree to pay the amount of this purchase." Then when the cashier is finished, the payment is immediately processed and you are done. Saves 30-45 seconds for each customer.
msbarnett 10y ago
The EMV rollout in Canada started in 2007. The US banking sector is an ridiculously slow moving, technologically regressive cesspool, frankly. Their piggybacked debit system is a disaster compared to what we have here.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

Us companies camd up with all kinds of methods. Some deployee them. Consumers mostly rejected them for inconvenience and spotty merchant support. Banks rejected costly changes in favor of smarter move of paying off politicians to push largest liabilites on merchants while keeping theirs super-low. Chip and PIN itself got broken plenty by smart crooks unlike some other schemes. All in all, one would wonder why greedy banks in Europe weren't pulling same stuff or invested in tech with more problems. What American banks did made ton of sense given their evil and consumers' apathy. I was shocked at tge recent reversal to chip cards.

nwah1 10y ago

It's called infrastructural inertia. We had it first, so we have things implemented in legacy ways. Other countries get the benefit of "leapfrog development" or "second-mover advantage"

emp_zealoth 10y ago
Bullshit. It might be true when it comes to copper lines, but not to credit card stuff. Most of the terminals must have at least a few generations of replacements already... In Europe we had pinless-magnetic-only-sign-here cards and the like and were getting rid of them ~ten years ago

miohtama 10y ago

I participated Payments Summit 2016 where they presented some hard numbers and you could also discuss with industry people. 50% of credit card fraud is 1st person fraud (you lie about the purchase yourself). Rest is online fraud, which is expected to go up with the chip and pin. The same happened in UK as crooks just moved to different liquidation methods of stolen credit cards. Stolen / copied card is actually the smallest part of the problem and banks estimate that cost of people forgetting their pin numbers is higher than the actual fraud. The estimate is that all fraud goes online until credit cards get tokenized CC numbers or time based CVV numbers (the card has a battery, LCD screen and CVV changes every few hours).