[seiwyn]

I used to intern at a company that manufactured credit cards. If I recall correctly, this actually is in place in South American countries. Due to relatively low fraud rates, credit and debit card security in the US is far behind the rest of the world.

Edit: Somewhat replying to a sibling comment. In countries with less effective police, they originally put withdrawal limits on the cards, but this just caused muggers to hold their victims until the victim's account was drained.

Further Edit: I couldn't find any online sources for this information, so I could be remembering incorrectly.