[vidarh]

> So you can't just do one state at a time, or one region

Of course you can. Countries outside the US did it city by city, bank by bank.

In fact, the US is in the process of a gradual rollout of EMV cards now - a mix of chip+pin and chip+signature cards. The aim for when to complete the transition varies by state, bank, and type of merchants, but most aim to be complete by mid 2015.

There was no big bang switchover anywhere that has already made the transition to my knowledge.

The banks did rolling releases of chip and pin cards as people were issued new cards over a period of years before the switch was complete. When the first people got chip and pin cards there were no locations where they could use the pin.

And in the UK at least, it took a couple of years before you had to use the pin even when faced with a chip+pin terminal - you could keep opting to sign for a long time.

Doing a singular rollout of tech like this is stupid and unnecessary.