IIRC the rules on who carries the liability for fraudulent transactions differ between chip & pin and signature authenticated transactions. With a signature, al

IIRC the rules on who carries the liability for fraudulent transactions differ between chip & pin and signature authenticated transactions. With a signature, all the liability is placed on the vendor for cardholder present transactions, whereas with chip & pin the liability is supposed to rest with the card issuer. The systems are set up so that if chip&pin transactions are not possible, they can fall back to signature authentication if the card settings permit it (and they all do, because to do otherwise would be a massive customer service failure). So, if you're going to use this system, you will have to take the liability issues into account. (The cynic within me suggests that even in the case where a fraudulent chip & pin transaction has occurred, merchant agreements probably do their utmost to shift liability to the vendor regardless though.)