[DrTarantism]

Its not a blase attitude. Its a chicken and egg situation. The credit card companies want to implement it but they need the stores to upgrade their point of sale hardware to accept the new cards. Stores say they won't upgrade their hardware til card companies release the cards

[ChuckMcM]

When I last heard this discussion it went like this: Visa to store : "People have been asking us for chip + pin and we're ready! Just pay a one time fee of $199.99 for the upgraded reader and note that C+P cards carry an additional .5% service charge for the more complex handling they do."

Literally using it as a revenue generating opportunity and a way to raise fees. My friend who owns the store declined to participate as they weren't interested in raising their prices just to pay Visa more money. Had Visa come at it the other way, reducing fees due to likely less fraud it would have been a different story.

[e40]

Literally using it as a revenue generating opportunity and a way to raise fees.

This is the crux of it. In the US, every change is an opportunity to raise margins. Vinyl to CD. Book to Kindle. It kills me when the dead tree version is less than the Kindle version, but it's the same thing at work as with C+P.

[DangerousPie]

How is that? I have a Chip+PIN enabled credit card and if the shop doesn't support that I can still swipe the magnetic stripe.

I don't see why they don't just provide credit cards with both options for a while until enough of the PoS hardware has been upgraded that they can get rid of the magnetic stripe. I guess cost plays a role, but I would assume that the decrease in fraud might offset that somewhat.

[DrTarantism]

It's a complicated issue. Banks are partly afraid of adopting something new. If Bank A is amongst the first American banks to switch and something goes wrong, Bank B may win its business due to customer frustration

[w1ntermute]

I highly doubt that banks really care about "customer frustration." If they did, then they would be focused on fixing a million different existing problems.

[DrTarantism]

I didn't say that banks cared about frustration. I said that banks would lose customers

[w1ntermute]

Given that, despite all the customer frustration that exists right now, they haven't been losing customers. I don't think that Chip+PIN failing to work correctly at first would cause customers to switch. Chip+PIN cards would only be cycled into use gradually, as people replaced their older, swipe-only cards with Chip+PIN cards, or signed up for new accounts. There would be more than enough time to sort out any problems, and you could also start out by making Chip+PIN optional for new/replaced cards.

[josho]

This is exactly what will happen. During the transition you will still be able to use mag swipe, then after some period the reader will force the use of the chip and only use mag swipe as a fallback when a chip error occurs. I suspect after a short while mag swipe will be removed entirely, but it remains in many places outside of the US as a fallback.

[astrodust]

They rolled it out in Canada without anyone getting into a flap. It just happened.

Readers wear out. As people buy new ones they were chip/pin ready. A lot of these terminals are rented as well, making it easier for providers to swap them.

[mattmanser]

That's not close to being a chicken and egg. The card companies just have to release the cards, then up the fees for using it without chip & pin.

What's the point of buying the POS systems when no-one can use it and there's no guarantee the cards will be rolled out?

It happened very rapidly here in Britain once the cards were out.

[DrTarantism]

It's all politics. Its a big financial commitment for whichever side goes first. The US has a bigger population than Britain. And perhaps the industry politics were different there too. The card companies may have got their way.

[hannibalhorn]

There's liability to consider as well. In the US, the consumer is generally not liable for fraud; I've certainly heard that in other countries with chip and PIN, if somebody steals and uses your card (having somehow obtained your PIN) you don't necessarily get your money back.