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This is supposed to be much bigger than the Target breach. If this doesn't give the move to the more secure EMV chip and pin method in the US, nothing will.
by aioprisan 12y ago
This is supposed to be much bigger than the Target breach. If this doesn't give the move to the more secure EMV chip and pin method in the US, nothing will.
- aianus 12y agoI wish they would deny merchant accounts to merchants too cheap/lazy to roll out contactless payments alongside chip and pin. There's nothing more stupid and frustrating than holding up the line doing chip and pin to buy a $5 meal at Subway.
- arrrg 12y agoDoes the US use some byzantine tech for chip and PIN? Entering the PIN is about as fast as signing the receipt, at least where I’m from. I doubt it’s much slower than paying cash. (I hand over my card. Card is inserted in reader. I enter my PIN and confirm. Transaction is confirmed after a couple seconds. That can’t be more than ten seconds or so.)
- btbuilder 12y agoMost low-cost transaction don't require any signature - swipe and go. I was surprised to find in Safeway recently that a < ~$20 transaction required no signature either.
- jacquesm 12y agoThe chip-and-pin mechanism when optimized is very low overhead, probably faster than using cash and not nearly as slow as signing a physical receipt. For instance, one oft used optimization is that you can insert the card in the reader prior to the register sending the amount to the chip&pin terminal.
- arrrg 12y agoYeah, right, there is lots that can be done. Sadly, also Germany is still somewhat backward in that regard. Every reader seems to work differently, so I’m always a bit hesitant to just stick in my card unprompted (and maybe prematurely), lest I get yelled at or something. There is lots to optimise, but chip and PIN is not inherently slow. In fact, for me it’s already as fast as cash in most cases.
- aianus 12y agoThe correct way to implement chip-and-pin is alongside a paypass/paywave reader. Customers making purchases over $50 must use chip-and-pin, everyone else can just tap their wallets against the reader. Some other problems with chip-and-pin: - You get really cheap merchants who would prefer to waste your time rather than shell out for the contactless reader. - You get international merchants who have no idea what's going on and make you sign two receipts in addition to entering your pin after trying and failing to swipe it twice. - You have to type your pin in with your bare hands in -40C weather at the gas station. - You have to tip waiters with them standing right there and judging you. - It breaks square and the like IMO it's an unnecessary mess for anything under ~$50.
- jacquesm 12y agoI make several payments per day using chip&pin, according to my bank last month more than 300 pin transactions. That's 10 per day (travelling I do this a lot more than when I'm at home). Online it's not a problem either (fairly easy integration here with a system called 'iDeal'), typing in your pin at -40C at the gas station is still a requirement with the current prices of gas and I'm not one bit bothered by 'waiters judging me', that's a self esteem issue, not a technical one. As for international merchants who have no idea what is going on: I spend more time abroad than I do in my home country and chip-and-pin have made my life a lot easier than it ever was before in this respect. Something like 7 countries in the last 3 weeks and I have yet to use my 'cash backup' or my 'credit card backup'. Contactless is a nice technology but it is as far as I'm concerned a step backwards, I can see the advantages only for bars and festivals where the risk of contaminating your card with fluids is significant and purchases are very small (<$10).
- jahewson 12y agoThat's the case for chip and pin too, low-cost transactions can be authorised with just a swipe.
- aianus 12y agoIn Canada, swipe doesn't work anywhere that has the chip-and-pin reader. No matter the amount, if you try swiping it says 'Use Chip'.
- jahewson 12y agoCorrection: I meant "insert your card", not "swipe". Though low-cost transactions can still be authorised without having to enter a PIN, at least in the UK.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- aianus 12y agoBefore Canada implemented Chip and PIN, you usually didn't have to sign the receipt for those kind of small purchases. It takes at least 10x longer now to do the insert, type PIN, remove than just a swipe.
- kubiiii 12y agoContactless payment is more and more widespread in france for purchases < € 20.
- tonyedgecombe 12y agoWe are starting to see it in the UK as well, it is very fast.
- icebraining 12y agoOur cards here in Portugal already support it as well, but the payment readers seem to be lagging behind.
- furyg3 12y agoThis. In Holland we have chip and pin, which I've got to say goes much faster than someone can fish out cash from their wallet, certainly faster than someone can make change. Recently many places also support RFID with no pin required for small purchases (I think it's €25). Goes much faster than the employee can bag your order up.
- doctorpangloss 12y agoTo be fair to Home Depot, its self checkout systems have the most payment options of any system I've ever seen. They include feeding the machine a check, paying with PayPal, writing in a bank transfer, among something like a dozen payment mechanisms.
- __david__ 12y agoWhere are you from? Around here (Southern California) every card reading machine defaults to debit transactions, where you have to enter your PIN anyway. At least when you do credit cards you don't have to sign them for small purchases any more (less than $50 at Home Depot, for instance). I really can't say I've ever felt frustrated waiting for the person ahead of me to pay (except for maybe old people hand writing checks at the grocery store—and even then it's kind of interesting to see such old-school payments in action).
- aianus 12y agoToronto, Canada
- __david__ 12y agoI've never used a contactless method. Is it NFC (or something similar)? Is it really faster than swiping your card? I had the impression you still had to do something on your phone to authorize it...
- aianus 12y agoYes it's NFC. No, you don't have to do anything at all except tap your card/wallet against the reader and wait for the beep. Here's a 1:47m video from MasterCard explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkxxhvVJjuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkxxhvVJjuM
- MichaelGG 12y agoEven in 2007 in Denver, Amex issued me a credit (not charge) card with a little RFID chip. Worked at a fair number of places. Just get the card near and it beeps and you go on your way.
- snarfy 12y agoThis is something that needs regulation, IMO. Debit or credit? Debit is the default everywhere. Why? Because credit has a surcharge for the merchant. It is complete bullshit that the merchants put the onus on their customers and then shrug their shoulders when fraud happens. At least with credit you are insured. They get your pin and you are screwed.
- stef25 12y agoHere in Europe everything's been chip & pin for longer than I can remember, lines are not held up. Takes seconds.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mzuvella 12y agoHaving chipped cards would not prevent this. It would slow down criminals cloning cards but the numbers can still easily be used fraudulently online.
- jacquesm 12y agoEven online I have to authorize transactions using my token and the chip on the card. So that definitely would make a difference.
- __david__ 12y agoI hear this a lot and I don't really know how EU's chip and pin works, but wouldn't it be best for the the card to spit out an encrypted blob that only the originating bank can decrypt? IE, no number that's useful to anyone in the middle at all? That seems like a better design to me.
- lucaspiller 12y agoA lot of places where I pay by PIN they still swipe it afterwards so that they have a record on their own system (not sure why they need this though) - I think this is what OP refers to. The difference between US banks and mine though is that if I try to pay by signing my bank won't authorise it - I have to enter my PIN (and sometimes sign too) to make a payment. Payments online is more of the retailers fault though. They shouldn't accept payments where the CVV check or address check fails. Here in the UK most retailers won't accept payments unless it all matches up, but as I understand this isn't as common in the US.
- icebraining 12y agoYes, and the infrastructure is there for chip&pin cards, you just need an ISO7816 USB reader, which are cheap nowadays (<$20). Browsers already support it as well; in fact, our national ID cards follow the same standard and you can login to governmental websites with the card. The problem is inertia, nothing else.
- kaared 12y agoIn Norway, the most common type of card is a debit card that can also be used as a Visa or MasterCard credit card. The card has a smart chip on the front, and on the back you have your national id number/date of birth, photo and signature, etc. The card is frequently used as an id card. When you pay using the debit card, you have to insert the part of the card with the chip into a reader and enter your pin. Typically you can not do this until the cash register has transferred the amount to pay to the terminal. You can also use it as a credit card when abroad or even in Norway. However, I'm not sure if the card will actually allow you credit (i.e. borrow money) per se -- I believe the account must have a sufficient positive balance, and I believe the domestic terminals are able to check that in real time (i.e. in a few seconds) and decline the sale if not funded. As for online purchases, every time I use it as a credit card, I get re-routed to a card verification process. This means I get taken to some third party site (typically Visa or MasterCard) where I have to authenticate using my password and generate a one-time password (pin) on my phone. You can also use a FOB, but I find a phone more practical. After the verification is done, you get taken back to the merchant site. This is the same verification process that is used for online banking. After living 15 years in the states I found this to be a bit annoying at first, but that had more to do with the speed of the implementation and the fact that it's applet-based (Java and Chrome -- have to switch browsers and hope that you don't lose your session). If I had to authenticate every time I bought something on Amazon it would get old pretty fast. However, one could simply authenticate once to indicate that this merchant is trusted. A new merchant would trigger the authentication before the transaction can be accepted.
- InclinedPlane 12y agoChip and pin is already being planned for the US over the next 2 years or so. I'm honestly quite surprised the news hasn't gotten more attention.