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Comment by turtlebits | Hacker News Reader

I think a big win for Supermarkets would be Square/Clover-like NFC payments (ie. no interaction other than tapping your phone) as the Chip+PIN dance still sucks.

Even places like Whole Food and 7-11 still require PIN + cashback + yes/no prompts on NFC payments which IMO defeats the purpose.

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This is a US only limitation. The rest of the world has long since moved to Paypass. The terminals are the same (no Square needed) however the US refuses to support it, i guess because of tipping.

I've paid by card in eight European countries and there were no prompts on the payment terminal other than my PIN (which I'm fine entering). More recently (in four or five countries) I've paid contactless which requires no pin under 25 euros. Also no additional prompts. Seems to be a thing of the USA, similar to lagging behind with magstripes?

They have contactless (phone/Visa etc) payments in New Zealand supermarkets for payments under $80 (about $53 USD). It only saves about 30 seconds though, not really a big deal unless you’re only buying a couple of items.

This just depends on whether a specific store has upgraded their POS. At every grocery store I go to in SF, including Whole Foods, Safeway, and Costco, every register supports NFC/Apple Pay.

Even better than Apple Pay IMO is NFC-enabled cards. Love that US issuers like Chase and Amex have finally started rolling those out.

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