[fluidcruft]

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.

[gambiting]

Pretty much nobody accepts signature-only cards in UK, it's all chip and pin now. I am sure US will follow suit soon.

[dboreham]

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.

[fluidcruft]

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.

[jonknee]

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.