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by myth_buster 3982 days ago
I'm curious to know whether given proliferation of the NFC alternatives available now like Apple/Google Pay is there a problem that Coin Card addresses which the former don't. Is paying in the restaurants one of those use case or will we see table side point-of-payments in near future which would make it obsolete.
2 comments
fluidcruft 3982 days ago
For what it's worth, all of my banks have already replaced my credit cards with chip-and-pin capable ones in preparation for October's rebalancing of fraud liability between merchants and banks. I can't imagine merchants will be too keen to accept these Coin cards.
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gambiting 3982 days ago
Pretty much nobody accepts signature-only cards in UK, it's all chip and pin now. I am sure US will follow suit soon.
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dboreham 3982 days ago
Are you sure? I ask because the majority of US card issuers have opted to use chip&signature, not chip&pin cards. In my wallet I only have one chip&pin card (Well Fargo). The rest are chip&signature. Whether or not they send you a PIN is a good indicator of which auth method the card supports.
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fluidcruft 3982 days ago
Hmm. Perhaps not... I hadn't heard of chip & signature until your comment. I set the pin online during card activation, and hadn't thought about it closely. So, it obviously must be chip & signature.

Anyway, that doesn't change that you can't clone the chip's contents. Perhaps you could punch the chip out (like a sim) and array a few of them inside a next-gen type of Coin card.

Chip & signature answers the "Amazon laughs at your chip&pin card" loophole I had been sort of half puzzling over.

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jonknee 3982 days ago
It's the chip that's the issue, not the PIN. If a merchant requires a chip (which they will at some point) you can't use something like the Coin.
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ianburrell 3982 days ago
In Canada, where they have switched to chip-and-pin cards, the servers bring a terminal to table. Customer puts in card, enters PIN, and enters tip amount. For swipe cards or chip-and-signature, it prints out a receipt to be signed.

Card would still be useful for terminals that don't support NFC payment. Or for larger payments than are allowed with NFC. Or for people who prefer to use cards instead of phone/watch.

It should be possible to use the tokenization system of Apply Pay to have switchable card with chip-only card.

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