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The Chip Card Transition In the US Has Been a Disaster (qz.com)
Ian Kar, writing for Quartz: Over the last year or so in the U.S., a lot of the plastic credit cards we carry around every day have been replaced by new one with chips embedded in them. The chips are supposed to make your credit and debit cards more secure -- a good thing! -- but there's one little secret no one wants to admit: The U.S.'s transition to chip cards has been an utter disaster. They're confusing to use, painstakingly slow, less secure than the alternatives, and aren't even the best solution for consumers. If you've shopped in a store and used a credit card, you've noticed the change. Retailers have likely asked you to insert the chip into the card reader, instead of swiping. But reading the chip seems to take much longer than just swiping. And on top of that, even though many retailers now have chip reading machines, some of them ask us just the opposite -- they say not to insert the card, and just swipe. It seems like there's no rhyme or reason to the whole thing.
As a Canadian I really don't get this. We've had chip and pin here for awhile, and while the initial adoption was a bit rough, it generally works fine.
Confusing
Reader says "insert chip in the bottom".
You insert chip in the bottom.
Reader says "enter pin".
You enter pin.
Painstakingly slow
I've noticed some readers are slow, but this probably has nothing to do with the chip, the merchant just has a shitty system. If you're talking about the process being slower, ok yeah, by about 10 to 15 seconds or so.
Less secure than the alternatives
What alternatives? Getting a signature that no teller ever verifies or checking the name against your ID (which again, never actually happens)?
Not saying chip and pin is perfect, but I really don't get why this is such a big "disaster".
First of all, "But reading the chip seems to take much longer than just swiping." Big fucking whoop? That's the time it takes for the card to obtain authentication from the bank server instead of the terminal just blindly accepting the transaction. That's already more secure, so stop whining.
But more importantly, chip and PIN is known to be more secure than swipe and sign. That's not up for debate, it's a fact. Unfortunately, the US, in their wise ways, decided to bastardize the system into chip and sign, removing the vast majority of the additional security for no real benefit. Oh, you can't remember a 4-digit PIN? Tough fucking luck. Instead, you'll probably have to switch to chip and PIN at some point in the future, causing another confusing transition.
Furthermore, the partial transition, various fuckups and all have largely been isolated to the US. Sure, Europe, Canada and others have also had a few hiccups when moving to the new system, but they had clear, strict deadlines that all providers followed. The US basically let the monkeys run the show, and so it's been a mess of delays.
You guys fucked up, now you get to live with the consequences. This isn't a failing of the chip system, it's a failing of the US thinking they could half-adopt it. That entire article sounds like entitled whining.
The whole article just smacks of fear of change frankly. We in the 21st century part of the Western hemisphere have long since done this, and reaped the fraud prevention benefits (read: no significant retail chip and pin fraud, fraudsters forced to try Cardholder not Present fraud, to which there are also pretty effective countermeasures).
I suspect those retailers still asking for magswipe will be transitioned to chip usage by their card service provider as the fraudsters will increasingly target those that still insist on swipe. The money will talk in this case, however the idea of chip and sign is a bit silly in that it will only stop coounterfeit cards, not stolen cards.
Completely at the feet of the banks. They needed to get off their asses and spend a tiny bit of their immense profits to fucking switch over. The banks could send every retailler a new chip reader for every register for free and STILL make record profits every quarter.
So blame the Banks and the Greedy assholes that run those banks.
I'm for bringing back all the heavy handed bank regulation from before 1980. Fuck the bankers.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For a disaster, it's been pretty mild for my employer.
Several points to consider, from my personal observations (as the IT guy in charge of deploying and training on this):
1) Chip & PIN vs. Chip & signature. Yeah, chip and PIN is more secure for the consumer, but EMV isn't about security for the consumer. That's not at all the point of EMV. The point of EMV is to protect the banks, who eat the loss, when somebody breaks into a big retailer and steals 120 million credit card numbers at the same time, because PCI compliance hasn't been enough, and never could be. EMV is the half of the new system that gets the news coverage, but the other half, point-to-point encryption, is more important. The transaction gets encrypted in the credit card pad, and the merchant never sees the card information. So if you break into their network, there's nothing there to steal. The benefit to the merchant is that PCI compliance is a hell of a lot easier (and less expensive). The benefit to the consumer is that their cards are, in fact, less likely to be compromised (because that kind of break-in is a huge part of credit card fraud these days), so less hassle waiting for a new card.
But in the US, the consumer isn't protected by the technology, they're protected by the law. If your card is stolen, you're never responsible for more than the first $50 (and if you're bank gives you static about that, file a complaint and open an account with a bank that isn't crooked).
2)It's not confusing, it's just different. The process isn't any more complicated, it's just a different process. So the cashiers need about one minute of training, mainly by me buying a soft drink so they could see the new screens, and then they had it down (because we don't hire idiots as cashiers, and we train them), and the customers will need a few reminders for a while. The only two actual issues we've had (both very minor) are that we used to not need a signature for transactions under a certain amount, and we need a signature on every transaction now (because it's chip & signature, not chip & sometimes signature - but I expect that to be relaxed very soon), and we have to remind the customers to remove the card when it's all done (and our system actually helps on that, because it won't let them sign until the card is removed, which reminds the cashier to remind the customer). The pads could beep a little louder, but it's not a problem.
3) It's only slower if you bought shitty equipment. I've seen very slow chip card transactions. They're pretty much always the cheap-ass little standalone terminals that small merchants get on a lease from their merchant service (who don't care how slow it is). The reason for this is that the pad is doing the encryption, and that requires a certain amount of processing horsepower. Ours are new, expensive, and high quality. The difference in time processing a chip card and a mag strip card is less than one second. Barely enough to notice. Other big chain stores I've been in that do EMV also have new, expensive, high quality pads, and they, too, are basically just as fast either way.
So no, it's not the end of the world. Just more hysteria mongering from somebody who has a book to sell, or just hates all change, even for the better. In other words, it's a day that ends in "y."
My bank recently replaced its ATM cards with chip/pin. Where I used to step up to an ATM, swipe the card, and put it and my wallet away while the machine woke up. The rest of the transaction, I have my hands free, and I'm gone in 30 seconds.
if you put your wallet away after swiping your card, what did you do with the cash (which certainly doesn't come out before "the machine wakes up")? Put it in a gold clip so you can stylishly flip out one bill at a time at the strip club?
lucm, indeed.