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Comment by phil21 | Hacker News Reader

> most places seem to ask for a PIN rather than a signature

That is for debit, which is an entirely different thing than credit.

There are no US banks that implement Chip & PIN. Heck, it's nearly impossible to get a Chip & PIN capable card for travel if you have a US issuing bank.

Swipe support will in theory eventually be disabled (e.g. authorizations declined by your issuing bank) at some point in the future when Chip & Signature is being rolled out.

If you're typing your PIN code into a terminal in the US, you are using debit though.

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> There are no US banks that implement Chip & PIN. Heck, it's nearly impossible to get a Chip & PIN capable card for travel if you have a US issuing bank.

Not entirely, but your last sentence is true. Some issuers do PIN credit cards. I have one from First Tech Federal Credit Union that uses PIN and touts it as a benefit. When I used it in Europe, it worked exactly as expected and prompted for my PIN just like in the States. There are a handful of smaller issuers that also do PIN primary (mostly credit unions but at least one Florida bank with a card catering to Cuban trade does) and a few more that have PINs but the PIN is secondary so it isn't asked for unless the terminal's configuration insists on it.

Here US, some stores when using a chip credit card (not debit/checking account btw) requires a pin instead of a signature, not sure if they call it a pin but it's 4 digits to verify purchases . . . instead of signature.

I have never heard of a US credit card using a PIN. May I ask what kind of card you have?

My corporate CitiBank card required me to set a pin when they switched to chip cards. All my other chip cards have been chip and signature though.

I have a MasterCard that takes a pin. I've been asked to enter the pin at several places, including WalMart. It is a credit card, not a debit card.

Frankly, I'm baffles by these claims that US cards don't work with chip and pin because so far, if I use the chip, I have been required to use the pin.

I also have a corporate amex with a pin set up, but I've never used it.

Target VISAs switched to chip and pin recently. I assume related to their data leak.

> There are no US banks that implement Chip & PIN

Not true - BarclayCard Arrival/Arrival+ do. However, they prioritize signature first. They can be used at automated kiosks that require PINs, though.

Isn't Barclay/BarclayCard (arguably) not a US bank though?

They have a US office and offer cards to US residents. That's all that matters.

I only ever use a credit card, so I'm not sure that's true. Or can you debit a credit card?

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