If you were to only bank amongst one Credit Union here in the states you'd see similar levels of service to what you mention (other than chip & pin which is only recently deployed).
Pretty much the same but:
1. Loads of free ATMs, the ones that charge are privately owned/run typically and in shops. While banks may run them and slap their logo all over it, it's effectively just advertising, it doesn't matter which one I go to. The idea that it would matter seems really weird.
2. No fees for bank transfers, most will complete within the hour I think and are generally immediate.
3. Chip & pin has been required for quite a while now, contactless cards are extremely common.
4. Pretty much everyone has some kind of bank account, I'm not sure how it works if you're homeless or have absolutely no proof of identity/address, but there might still be things that can be done there.
Most accounts are also free, though sometimes with usage requirements (deposit at least £X + have two direct debits is common), and many will pay you ~£100 to switch to them.
Due to the way this was implemented in Europe and the fraud it enabled[1][2], I wouldn't consider it any sort of plus.
1: http://www.wired.com/2015/10/x-ray-scans-expose-an-ingenious...
It's a lot more effort to make a spoof card like that, more effort than the 5 minutes of practice required to vaguely copy someones signature and get it past a disinterested, minimum wage store clerk.
It's not like the magnetic stripe is particularly secure either, you could pretty easily clone someone's card and then even use your own signature.
Even then, if someone is required to take the card, put it in a reader and type in the correct pin it's a bit harder to 'skim' a bit extra at the till.
The question should not be "is chip and pin entirely secure" but "is it better than a magnetic stripe and a pen marking".
> The UK, for example, has seen a nearly 70 percent decline in counterfeit card transactions since adopting chip cards, according to Barclays.
https://squareup.com/townsquare/why-is-the-u-s-the-last-mark...
I was floored when I had to sign my name (on a brand new touchscreen) in the US but EMV wasn't deployed.
Contactless payments were brand new too (I couldn't use Android pay at that point), but we'd had "tap and pay" in Australia for two years at least. In Canada, someone took a carbon copy imprint of my card. An imprint, in 2015!
I can't find the exact dates, but EMV has been in Australia for at least a decade, signatures were "deprecated" at the end of 2014 and cheques are pretty much gone now.
https://www.commbank.com.au/about-us/news/media-releases/200... says that NFC payments started in 2006, but they took a few years to really take off. Last year I could finally use my Android phone to pay pretty much everywhere (and it's more secure than an NFC credit card, because I need to unlock my phone and enter a PIN to make a payment)
Also, what's the deal with interbank money transfers in the US? All I need to send money to someone in Australia is the BSB (Bank-State-Branch) and an account number. It takes about 2 days for the payment to clear.