[lucaspiller]

In the US (even without a chip) you usually don't need to sign for smaller transactions - the shop assistant just swipes your card and it's done. This can even work on some European cards there (it did for my UK credit card).

Chip-and-PIN was invented to make card transactions more secure at a time when most transactions were 'offline', i.e. there was no direct connection from the card terminal to the issuer, so it wasn't possible to ask the issuer whether a transaction should be allowed. To attempt to combat card skimming, the chip was added, and terminals upgraded to require the PIN to be entered if the card had a chip [1].

Nowadays almost all transactions happen 'online', so the bank is asked whether the transaction should be authorised first (this is why there is sometimes a delay on terminals as they connect to the issuer). This means the issuer can run their own fraud detection before the transaction takes place. In the US they took this a step further, and just used that instead of requiring a signature to be collected for most purchases. To the end user it's an even better experience than NFC provides.

[1] This also means you have no reason to give your card to anyone, when the card needs to be inserted above/below the PIN pad, so it prevents another opportunity for skimming.