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Following Other Credit Cards, Visa Will Also Stop Requiring Signatures (siliconbeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes SiliconBeat:
Visa, the largest U.S. credit card issuer, became the last of the major credit card companies to announce its plan to make signatures optional... Visa joined American Express, Discover, and Mastercard in the phase-out. Mastercard was the first one to announce the move in October, and American Express and Discover followed suit in December... However, this change does not apply to every credit card in circulation; older credit cards without EMV chips will still require signatures for authentication... Since 2011, Visa has deployed more than 460 million EMV chip cards and EMV chip-enabled readers at more than 2.5 million locations.
"Businesses that accepted EMV cards reported a 66 percent decline in fraud in the first two years of EMV deployment," the article notes -- suggesting a future where fewer shoppers are signing their receipts.
"In Canada, Australia and most of Europe, credit cards have long abandoned the signature for the EMV chip and a PIN to authenticate the transaction, like one does with a debit card."
"Businesses that accepted EMV cards reported a 66 percent decline in fraud in the first two years of EMV deployment," the article notes -- suggesting a future where fewer shoppers are signing their receipts.
"In Canada, Australia and most of Europe, credit cards have long abandoned the signature for the EMV chip and a PIN to authenticate the transaction, like one does with a debit card."
Does this also apply to merchants who won't turn on their damn chip readers?
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
From TFA:
That sentence is missing the word "require": "and require a PIN" . This changes the meaning, since in most of Europe the signature requirement has not been dropped, it has been (mostly) replaced with a PIN. I believe banks in Europe will still issue chip-and-signature cards to elderly people on request.
[I now await the replies pointing out the grammar errors in my post. Also, my recent experience is limited to the UK -- perhaps it is different in other European countries, but I don't think so].
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
>"In Canada, Australia and most of Europe, credit cards have long abandoned the signature for the EMV chip and a PIN to authenticate the transaction, like one does with a debit card."
We never needed a "chip" in the first place. Many millions of dollars wasted to overhaul everything- replacing readers, putting in chips, replacing all cards, updating interfaces and software- and still no PIN! A PIN code is a password. If required, without it, a card would be useless (at least in physical transactions, which is all we are really talking about anyway, since on-line can't use "chip readers"). Doesn't matter if it is a valid card, a stolen card, or a "made up" (cloned) card- put in the wrong PIN too many times and POOF, the account is frozen.
A password/PIN is required for my phone, my Email, my work account, Slashdot, my bank card, voicemail, calling to discuss my cable TV account, just about everything.... except credit cards??? Do they REALLY think people can't handle at least a freaking 4 digit number password in 2018?
>"Businesses that accepted EMV cards reported a 66 percent decline in fraud in the first two years of EMV deployment,"
Add a PIN, and then get a 99% decline in in-person fraud. Again, chip security does NOTHING for online security. Develop a PIN for use online and watch fraud drop tremendously there, too.
You've got it backwards. If the customer initiates a chargeback, the credit card company assumes the customer is telling the truth. It's not up to the customer to prove the charge was fraudulent. It's up to the merchant to prove the charge was legit. And the easiest way for a merchant to do that is to send the credit card processor a copy of the signature on the receipt. If the receipt matches the customer's signature on file, case closed - it's not fraud. (If the signature doesn't match or there is no signature, the credit card company may or may not decline the chargeback. Merchants can submit other info - address, phone number, etc. - that are not on the card but which the card issuer has on file. That's why gas station pumps ask you to type in your zip code when you use a credit card. But in my experience as a retail business, any customer chargeback where we weren't able to produce a signed receipt or if the signature was faint or illegible, we automatically lost.)
Merchants want to get rid of signatures because it's what the credit card companies use to shift the cost of fraud onto the merchants. Think about it. There are two possible ways for credit card fraud to happen. Either you gave away/lost your card, or the credit card processor allowed a charge that it shouldn't have. The merchant has no way of knowing if a card is fraudulent. All they see is a card, stick it into the reader, and the machine tells them the transaction was approved or declined. The credit card companies got laws passed which prohibit merchants even from requiring ID before they have to accept a card. They can ask for ID, but it's illegal to refuse a credit card transaction just because the customer doesn't have or doesn't want to show ID. But somehow the credit card companies have managed to make the party which has no control over fraud (merchants) pay for fraud. (The exorbitant interest fees you pay credit card companies pay for delinquent customers, not fraud.)
This is why the state of credit card security is so deplorable. Online banking is very secure. Online bill pay is very secure. Wire transfers are very secure. But credit cards security sucks because the parties which can do something about security (the credit card companies and processors) aren't the ones paying for fraud. So they've had little to no incentive to improve credit card security for decades because it hasn't cost them a dime. The merchants have been paying for all the fraud. And whatever the merchant pays for, you pay for via higher prices.
Chip & PIN has its problems, but it's still much more secure than Chip & Sign. And problems with the current Chip & PIN implementation can easily be fixed without altering the process (just need to modify the algorithm the chip uses).