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Comment by oggedintocom | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting reading about chip+pin and contactless payments in the US - in Australia 95%+ of transactions are chip+pin, and 70% of that (almost all transactions under $100) are contactless.

The system isn't perfect, and anecdotal stories from LEOs indicate fraud has risen due to the low friction of contactless transactions, but obviously it's not too big a problem for the banks to wear (as all fraudulent contactless transactions are the bank's problem, not the card owner's).

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The US Chip + Signature system is 1000x worse than the Chip + Pin systems I've experienced in any other contry

I've run into two setups here in Oregon that require you to swipe first (inserting wont start the process at all), then it tells you to insert, then waits for ever, then pin, then another long wait, then approved. No idea how they managed to screw it up that badly. I've used it elsewhere and it was really fast.

Whats worse is some stores have it where you can insert, but when you do it says "swipe card". Like it detects you inserted but refuses to run it that way. I really just don't get it.

I work in retail. Failing to start processing upon insertion is a bug, the screen telling you to insert is a warning that you did the wrong thing not an expected part of the process. I have seen a weird issue wherein some cards, always the same cards don't start processing until you try and fail to swipe. I have no idea what the difference is as it doesn't seem to be a single issuing bank.

It seems to be whatever model terminal they're using.

One other example is chase. Their ATMs still make you insert, pull out, then stick back in. Ive yet to have one take the card first try.

The same machine worked properly with 99% of cards I think its fixed and its no longer required.

The problem with a pin system is that I have a like 8 cards that I use pretty randomly. While any of them can have a pin, the only one I know is my ATM card. I can't imagine how people do this with multiple cards and multiple pins without a password manager or some algorithm.

May I ask why you have eight cards? Is that common in your part of the world?

I've got three cards: personal account, business account, and credit cards. I don't remember the credit card PIN since I rarely need it, so that leaves two PINs. I'm already having a hard time remember my business card PIN since I don't use it much. Can't imagine having to carry around eight and remembering all those PINs!

Eight was an exaggeration. It's five, counting my ATM card. They're all personal accounts. I only know the PIN for the ATM. They're all on autopay and it's not like I come anywhere close to the limit on them, so it doesn't matter.

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