informatimago is absolutely right, chip based (credit) cards is a French invention. If you want to read in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV http://en.w

informatimago is absolutely right, chip based (credit) cards is a French invention. If you want to read in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV "The first standard for payment cards was the Carte Bancaire M4 from Bull-CP8 deployed in France in 1986 followed by the B4B0' (compatible with the M4) deployed in 1989. Geldkarte in Germany also predates EMV. EMV was designed to allow cards and terminals to be backwardly compatible with these standards. France has since migrated all its card and terminal infrastructure to EMV."