Speedwell

Wells Fargo just told me that microchip cards are available only for credit cards, not for debit cards.

hungryhorace

You don't have a chip & pin card, I assure you. You have a chip & signature card.

MidAtlantic

I think the implementation problem is that merchants bear the cost of installation but the card issuers reap the benefit.

MarylandNed

There are 2 types of EMV cards - Chip & PIN and Chip & Signature with the latter the more common in the US. However, Chip & PIN cards are definitely coming to the US. In fact, we've had Chip & PIN cards from Andrews Federal Credit Union for a couple of years now. My daughters took theirs to the UK and continental Europe a couple of summers ago and the cards worked very well.

https://www.andrewsfcu.org/credit_ca...k_rewards.html

Citing cost as a reason for not switching to EMV is just nonsense as the data breach at Target and others proves. Non-EMV transactions are much more vulnerable to fraud and consumers are not going to put up with the hassle of dealing with non-EMV fraud if EMV cards are available that will greatly reduce that threat.

In fact, the major US credit card companies (Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Discover) are implementing a "fraud liability shift" effective October 2015. So if a consumer's EMV card is used fraudulently, the liability will shift to the merchant if the merchant did not upgrade to EMV technology. So merchants will have a very big incentive to upgrade.

http://creditcardforum.com/blog/chip...dit-cards-usa/

hungryhorace

How would EMV at Target have prevented their security breach? I don't believe for one second implementing EMV would have prevented the fraud that occurred. By all accounts it looks like an inside job.

cicero38

I've had chip & pin from AMEX from a while now, no problems here

hungryhorace

I heard AMEX were introducing C&P, but I haven't seen anything come from this. AMEX still list C&S: http://chipandsignature.americanexpress.com/

So which do you really have?

durham_lad

I talked with them in the last few months when mine came up for renewal and they were only doing CHIP and signature, which is what I got.

Jscl

I have a chip and pin from BofA also. They do them on their travel awards visa cards (also great because they don't charge a foreign currency service fee).

hungryhorace

No. You. Don't. Argh!

You have a chip & signature card.

MarylandNed

I didn't say that EMV would have prevented the Target breach. I was using the Target breach as an example of how using cost analysis (to decide whether to upgrade the security of credit card transactions based on cost vs benefit) is flawed. Thieves are becoming more devious and there is no point in waiting until the costs of fraud outweigh the benefits of the status quo (i.e. not upgrading technology & equipment) because you could get hit in a really big way before you can react. Therefore, credit card companies and merchants have to continuously look for ways to increase the security of credit card transactions and stay ahead of the thieves. Chip & PIN is a good start (better than Chip & Signature) in preventing fraud from stolen credit card and credit card numbers. However additional layers of security are needed to secure every aspect of the transaction life cycle.

This is a good article on what EMV can and can't do:

http://files.firstdata.com/downloads...ization-WP.PDF

As you can see, there is room for further improvement.

sir_eccles

Oddity over the weekend. Actually saw a chip and pin machine here in Phoenix.

My parents are in town visiting and wanted to get some plants for our garden so we went to the local independent garden center. There on their rickety wooden counter sat a chip and pin machine, she put in my dad's Barclaycard (British issued), he put in his pin and boom it approved the transaction and out came a receipt.

We were all shocked.

Jscl

Are you guys with chip and signature sure you don't have a chip+pin and signature? I don't know how the chip will be useful without the pin, the standard chip machines all require entry of a pin (maybe not those fancy Starbucks ones, but the Sainsburys type machines).

It used to be that my bank would give you a PIN for your normal signature credit card if you asked for it, but didn't automatically, because usually people didn't need it. Perhaps it's the same with the "chip and signature" cards, the chip is there in case you want to use it that way, but if you do you have to ask to have the pin set.

Hungry Horace can you explain more clearly what you're trying to say? Are you saying my card doesn't have a pin (it does) or just that I'm using the phrase "chip and pin" when I should be using "chip and signature" to describe a card with chip and pin and signature capabilities?

MarylandNed

I travel to Canada a lot and it's really embarrassing for US visitors when they have to admit that they don't have Chip & PIN cards. It's also causing major hassles in places like Europe where they have, for example, automated train ticket machines that expect Chip & PIN credit cards. I know of US visitors to Europe who have missed trains because they couldn't use the automated ticket dispensers and had to wait for the ticket windows to open so they could deal with a person instead.

MarylandNed

You might have a PIN for your credit card to take money out of an ATM. That does not mean that you have a "Chip & PIN" credit card. With C&P credit cards, you have to insert the credit card into a machine that reads the info on the chip and then you have to enter your PIN to complete the transaction. You don't sign anything.

http://www.cardhub.com/edu/chip-and-...and-signature/