It's very odd, as this has been working smoothly in the EU for around a decade, depending on the country. It's so reliable that you can pay for bus/metro/train

It's very odd, as this has been working smoothly in the EU for around a decade, depending on the country. It's so reliable that you can pay for bus/metro/train tickets in London (since 2014) and many other cities directly at the ticket barrier [1 for photo], which would cause problems if cards were failing or slow. The only time I'm confused is when there's an unusual card reader, usually a low-budget all-in-one type with a touchscreen, as it's not always clear where the NFC reader is. This is maybe 1-2% of transactions. Every so often a machine makes the "dur dur" noise and I have to use the chip and my PIN. I'm not sure if this is every Nth transaction, or after spending ¤X. Either way, it's to avoid a lot of contactless payments being made if the card is stolen. (And maybe this is irrelevant in the USA, without PINs?) "8 out of 10 card payments now contactless in the Nordics" [2]. 54% in the whole EU [3], only 34% in the USA [4]. [1] https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/115311/contactless-travel/ https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-articles/1153... [2] https://www.nets.eu/Media-and-press/news/Pages/8-out-of-10-card-payments-now-contactless-in-the-Nordics.aspx https://www.nets.eu/Media-and-press/news/Pages/8-out-of-10-c... [3] https://data.ecb.europa.eu/blog/blog-posts/contactless-payments-euro-area https://data.ecb.europa.eu/blog/blog-posts/contactless-payme... [4] https://ktvz.com/stacker-money/2023/08/01/american-consumers-drive-a-rapid-expansion-of-contactless-payments/ https://ktvz.com/stacker-money/2023/08/01/american-consumers...