Because the U.S. does not have chip-and-pin, we have chip-and-sign. The main reason is that federal law in the U.S. limits the credit-card holder fraud liabilit

Because the U.S. does not have chip-and-pin, we have chip-and-sign. The main reason is that federal law in the U.S. limits the credit-card holder fraud liability to $50, and does so with language around signatures. Those same laws also set out fraud penalties for people fraudulently signing. Since all of the laws revolve around signing, we don't get PINs. There is a second wrinkle to this for Europe: because there is no equivalent to these laws, in many cases Europeans are the ones completely on the hook for fraudulent transactions as the correct PIN number is seen as evidence the consumer having leaked it. So in cases of fraud the U.S. chip-and-signiture winds up protecting the consumer much more.