[jimmaswell]

>Credit cards are super quick to use at the register.

At least they used to be. Chips ruined that. Now I have to stand there staring at the screen for half a minute waiting to respond to prompts and to pull the card out at the end. For most transactions, cash is probably faster than using a chip.

[maroonblazer]

This used to be the case for me until very recently. I've noticed that the two grocery stores I frequent most are suddenly significantly faster. Like almost instant (less than 2 secs). This is in Seattle. So, it'll probably be that way everywhere eventually.

[Natanael_L]

In Sweden, in most stores, you insert the chip and enter the PIN just after the transaction starts, and then once everything is scanned you just confirm the total price (which is very quick).

[LeonidasXIV]

In Denmark you just use NFC/Contactless. Hardly anyone ever types in PIN numbers and it is also very quick.

When I was visiting Sweden the terminals did not support NFC or I was just doing something wrong.

[Natanael_L]

NFC support is getting more common in Sweden now. Retail stores has been slow with it until now, though.

[russjr08]

This is why I’m a big fan of NFC payments when available. I find it to be pretty much instant, instead of having to wait what feels like 30 seconds for the chip transaction to process.

Though I’m in the US. I hear chip transactions are way faster in other countries where they’ve been using that system for a while.

[jarrettch]

It's even worse when your chip starts to fail, as one of my has started to do very recently. You have to put the card in three times(and wait for it to fail 3 times) before you're allowed to use the swipe function. Took longer than cash.

[jimmaswell]

Recently I tried the chip and it failed, then I tried the swipe and it said to use the chip, then I used the chip and it said I had to use the swipe, and finally the swipe worked. First time I ever had a chip fail, and it's a pretty much brand new card, so it was most likely the machine's fault.

[jjuhl]

I don't see the problem. If waiting a little is such a big deal then you are in too much of a hurry already and/or too stressed out. Relax. Take it easy.

[bbarn]

Where are you, out of curiousity? I find most of the chips are no slower than using a swipe card was before.

[Miredly]

I lived in Spain for a year, and everyone had chips there. My US card always drew eyerolls as they had to find the /old/ machine and dust it off and find someone who remembered how to use it. I was excited that we were getting chips here in the US, but of course they fucked it up and for whatever reason it takes ages for your chip to be read, and there are frequent chip read errors.

[chipotle_coyote]

In the US, it depends entirely on the point-of-sale system. Some are just as fast; some are a lot slower. My guess is that the slow ones are using the same old CPUs that the previous "stripe-only" ones did, which just aren't powerful enough to handle the added cryptography requirements in a reasonable amount of time.

[labster]

Chip cards work super-slow in the US. I often pay in cash because it's so much faster. I take the same chip card to the Netherlands and it works in a few seconds.

[btilly]

I have the same experience in Orange County.

Everyone hates the chip.

[jimmaswell]

The US

[Oletros]

I have been used cards with chips for years and now contactless payments and they are a lot quicker than swipping the card. In less than 5 seconds is done

At least in Spain

[aidenn0]

I assume spain is chip and pin?

In the US it's chip and signature, and you can't sign until after the chip verification (either signing a paper receipt, or with a stylus on the terminal screen).

In addition chips are new and some terminals are painfully slow (30 seconds) to verify. I'm not sure I've ever seen one finish in under 5 seconds, though a few merchants have terminals that come close to that.

[WorldMaker]

The sad fact is the terminals are painfully slow because US banks don't think US customers want or are capable of using PINs.

When you use a PIN you get a nice two factor signature from the card chip: it signs the current timestamp and the PIN you knew, and can do both as quickly as chip's processing capability and the bandwidth between the chip and terminal allows.

US banks came up with a dumb compromise just like most of their websites use Wish-It-Were-Two-Factor auth and secondary "Security Question" passwords, the chip cards in the US are doing their own Wish-It-Were-Two-Factor: sign a timestamp, wait some amount of wall clock time, sign a different timestamp.

Most of the wait in a chip purchase in the US is artificial just to make sure that two timestamps are "sufficiently" different. US banks should just give people PINs and stop this silliness.

[vonmoltke]

> The sad fact is the terminals are painfully slow because US banks don't think US customers want or are capable of using PINs.

Is this conjecture, or do you have actual citations to back this up? Those same banks have been issuing debit cards with PINs for a couple decades.

[WorldMaker]

It's a bit intentional hyperbole, but not by much.

Every chip card I've received to date from several different major US banks has included some variation of "Great news! You don't need to learn or use a PIN to use this card."

My personal reaction every time has been, "But what if I want to use a PIN?" and this far I've never seen a satisfactory answer in those same letters or on those banks' own websites.

Admittedly that is purely anecdotal, as far as citations go, but in my mind it seems pretty clear what these banks think about PINs for credit cards.

[kmonsen]

Why can't you though? I feel that is an implementation detail that is leaking out. The machine can do two things at once and only use the signature if the transaction is successful.

[Oletros]

Yes, chip and pin, and for amounts smaller than 20 euro you don't even have to put the pin if you configure the card

[bobalob_wtf]

Chip & signature sounds awful (and pointless!) Why would they not use PIN?

We now have contactless payments for under £30 in the UK, similar to Apple pay but you just place your card on the reader.

[xfkechyk]

that's because of shitty software. chip should get faster: https://paymentweek.com/2017-5-2-wait-no-more-quick-chip-tec...