4 ms·

Still a LOT of merchants that need to upgrade equipment to do chip cards including some large franchises. There is a real problem that chip reading devices do n

Still a LOT of merchants that need to upgrade equipment to do chip cards including some large franchises. There is a real problem that chip reading devices do not yet have anywhere near the longevity that magswipe use does. Machines go out of service for repair and cleaning after as little as a month of use in busy locations. Magstripe machines typically lasted 12 months plus before needing attention.

Kiro 5y ago
Where do you live? I haven't seen a card terminal that can't do chip in like 15 years. The old terminals that need to be upgraded are the ones that can't do contactless but even those are rare. A card terminal that can only do magnetic seems really alien and ancient.
- barsonme 5y ago
  Lots of Jimmy Johns in my area (circa 2012) only had swipe readers for some reason. But around 2014 they started upgrading to chip readers.
anakaine 5y ago
This is just not true. It is even less true for readers that support contactless payment.
derefr 5y ago
Who cares about inserting chips into the machine? We're already well past that, to contactless payment — tapping the chipped card against the terminal like an NFC door tag. It still uses the chip, and can still require your PIN (depending on your bank); you just don't stick the card in the machine to do it. MTBF = approximately forever. Inserting the chip is a fallback, or for high-value transactions. Both use-cases are low-volume enough that a POS terminal's chip-slot reader should see relatively little use/wear.
theshrike79 5y ago
In Finland they motivated the stores to upgrade by telling them that after date X they would be responsible for any fraudulent transactions done with a magstrip. The transition went really fucking fast after that =)
- hamburgerwah 5y ago
  This has been the case in the US for two years. Lots of merchants including some very large one don't really care. Fraud is relatively small in comparison to technology and maintenance costs.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  This already happened in the US a few years ago.
nikau 5y ago
Why aren't they using nfc?

Kiro 5y ago

Where do you live? I haven't seen a card terminal that can't do chip in like 15 years. The old terminals that need to be upgraded are the ones that can't do contactless but even those are rare. A card terminal that can only do magnetic seems really alien and ancient.

barsonme 5y ago
Lots of Jimmy Johns in my area (circa 2012) only had swipe readers for some reason. But around 2014 they started upgrading to chip readers.

anakaine 5y ago

This is just not true. It is even less true for readers that support contactless payment.

derefr 5y ago

Who cares about inserting chips into the machine? We're already well past that, to contactless payment — tapping the chipped card against the terminal like an NFC door tag. It still uses the chip, and can still require your PIN (depending on your bank); you just don't stick the card in the machine to do it. MTBF = approximately forever. Inserting the chip is a fallback, or for high-value transactions. Both use-cases are low-volume enough that a POS terminal's chip-slot reader should see relatively little use/wear.

theshrike79 5y ago

In Finland they motivated the stores to upgrade by telling them that after date X they would be responsible for any fraudulent transactions done with a magstrip. The transition went really fucking fast after that =)

hamburgerwah 5y ago
This has been the case in the US for two years. Lots of merchants including some very large one don't really care. Fraud is relatively small in comparison to technology and maintenance costs.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
This already happened in the US a few years ago.

nikau 5y ago

Why aren't they using nfc?