"...backed by formidable fraud protections" Laughable, at least in the USA. It took decades for us to finally get cards with chips in them, and when we finally

"...backed by formidable fraud protections" Laughable, at least in the USA. It took decades for us to finally get cards with chips in them, and when we finally did... the issuers "forgot" to implement the other half of the equation: PINs. "Chip-&-PIN" was standard through the rest of the industrialized world for ages, while card companies abetted theft in the USA by neglecting to implement PINs.