[Pxtl]

Yeah, here in Canada the magstrip has all but gone the way of the dodo - it's chip-and-pin or tap everywhere here. IIRC vendors here stopped taking magstrips before the Americans even.

Cards still have magstrips on them but I can't remember the last time one got used. Maybe a gas station.

[josephg]

Same in Aus. I think banking innovation like this is way easier in smaller countries like australia because there’s way fewer banks. The USA has hundreds of banks - so getting them to all agree on a standard is near impossible. It’s no wonder America still uses ACH and cheques.

Australia has just 6 banks. And they have a history of collaborating on things like this - since a fluid economy raises all boats, and fraud hurts them all. All Australian cards and point of sale systems support chips and taps. And have for nearly a decade.

[vinay427]

There's a similar situation in Switzerland, where a handful of banks dominate the national market despite some smaller (cantonal) options that mostly have their own consortium anyway. The larger banks cooperated on creating a mobile payments platform known as TWINT [1], which allows for fast and free individual payments for splitting the cost of a meal, private sales, or even many in-store transactions. This allows them a competitive advantage over alternatives such as small Swiss banks or foreign banks that the many non-Swiss residents in Switzerland may otherwise continue using. These other options are relegated to IBAN transfers which are notably less convenient.

[1] https://www.twint.ch/en/

[Pxtl]

I think the problem is less the country size and more that the USA had a legislative structure that encouraged small, local banks until recently (1980 iirc) and so before then there was a Cambrian explosion of banks (pardon the pun). Now banks are gradually consolidating, but they have nothing close to the oligopoly that you see in countries without that sort of history.

[throwawayboise]

The big holdout in the USA was fuel pumps. For some reason they demanded and got all kinds of extra time to convert to chip cards instead of swipe.

[jjav]

> The big holdout in the USA was fuel pumps.

Was? Most of the ones I use are still magstripe-based ("remove your card quickly"). Only occasionally it says "leave card inserted" which is where (I assume) it's talking to the chip.

[jjav]

> Cards still have magstrips on them but I can't remember the last time one got used.

But the chips are relatively flaky and often don't work. At least here (California) after three failed chip communication attempts, the terminal allows a magstripe swipe instead as a backup. Happens quite often.