5 ms·

I found it odd that Mastercard would say "[...] it has been wanting to make the change for years, but held off until cards embedded with computer chips became c

by Jolter 9y ago

I found it odd that Mastercard would say "[...] it has been wanting to make the change for years, but held off until cards embedded with computer chips became common." Whose responsibility is it to make those cards more common, if not Mastercard's? In Sweden, cards have only been issued with chips since the early 2000s, and consequently merchants only very rarely use signature purchases. Why they didn't push this sooner in the US is a riddle wrappen in a mystery... The only place I've seen signatures used recently around here have been in busy bars/nightclubs, where stressed-out bartenders don't want to wait for online validation. I guess they get few enough fraud attempts at cocktails that they don't care too much about validation.

bantunes 9y ago
It might be that non-chip CCs had long expiry dates and only now they're being replaced?
- stevesimmons 9y ago
  This is not a new situation... I was involved with Australia's chip-and-pin switch in 2006. At the time, we were amazed how slow USA was getting rid of magstripe cards and signatures. And that was 12 years ago...
halestock 9y ago
I'd wager it's less an issue of the cards being commonplace, but instead the card readers and processing companies. I still regularly encounter stores which either don't have a card reader that can accept a chip, or there's a sign indicating that it's not enabled yet.
jdmichal 9y ago
> Whose responsibility is it to make those cards more common, if not Mastercard's? The issuers. Of course, Mastercard has some influence over them... But they certainly can't unilaterally dictate conditions to them beyond whatever contract they signed. There's also the fact that, even if issuers handed them out, the machines and merchant processors also have to support them. Which was something that still hasn't completely happened in the US, even with the networks pushing as hard as they could. (Moving fraud liability to the merchants is about the biggest move they could make.)

by Jolter 9y ago

bantunes 9y ago

It might be that non-chip CCs had long expiry dates and only now they're being replaced?

stevesimmons 9y ago
This is not a new situation... I was involved with Australia's chip-and-pin switch in 2006. At the time, we were amazed how slow USA was getting rid of magstripe cards and signatures. And that was 12 years ago...

halestock 9y ago

I'd wager it's less an issue of the cards being commonplace, but instead the card readers and processing companies. I still regularly encounter stores which either don't have a card reader that can accept a chip, or there's a sign indicating that it's not enabled yet.

jdmichal 9y ago

> Whose responsibility is it to make those cards more common, if not Mastercard's? The issuers. Of course, Mastercard has some influence over them... But they certainly can't unilaterally dictate conditions to them beyond whatever contract they signed. There's also the fact that, even if issuers handed them out, the machines and merchant processors also have to support them. Which was something that still hasn't completely happened in the US, even with the networks pushing as hard as they could. (Moving fraud liability to the merchants is about the biggest move they could make.)