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Comment by Mandatum | Hacker News Reader

They were retired over a decade ago (in all main use-cases except where connectivity goes down - magstripe is the backup, but thoroughly validated option).. except in the US where there's this idea that implementing chip & pin is a barrier for sales and hurt small business because "upgrading the terminal is expensive" (no it's not - if you can't account for $150 every 10 years on taking payment, you shouldn't be in business - or just use cash).

My guess is lobbying by insurance and reinsurance drove most of that conversation, because the only downside I've seen from chip & pin implementation is that you have to touch the terminal. Paywave and contactless are now mainstream, so this is a non-issue.

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> magstripe is the backup, but thoroughly validated option

Chip and pin is also used for offline transactions. Never once in Europe have i signed/seen someone sign https://www.emv-connection.com/emv-faq/#q9

Pin is verified on card,not over network.

I used the signature last year in Germany, when the cashier stripped my card without asking first whether I wanted to pay using my PIN or the stripe.

upgrading the terminal is expensive

It's not the terminal upgrade that's the barrier. At many businesses, if you upgrade the terminal you also have to replace the point-of-sale system. Then you have to integrate it with your existing backend sales system, fulfillment system, inventory system, and more. And you're lucky if all of that can then be integrated into your accounting system. Then you have to retrain all of the people who will ever touch any part of the entire process.

You see it as upgrading the terminal because that's all you see. But that is the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

Weird how the whole globe managed that, from small city states over third world nations to old established countries. And yet...

A lot of the third world leapfrogged to mobile payments and never had widespread credit card adoption. So it's more like 4% of the world hasn't done a thing the 10% of the world that HN perceives as "rest of the world" has done.

Here in the UK the government engaged in a big campaign to encourage companies to support it due to the added security. Within a year pretty much every shop could accept chip and pin. None of them suffered financial difficulties as far as I am aware.

You Americans need to stop whining and get on with it like the rest of the world has. I mean, honestly, most shops here are now moving on to accepting contactless payments, so you're two generations behind. Makes America look like backward yokels.

Yeah, no. Europe and Asia-Pacific all adopted chip and pin just fine (minus China).

> Europe and Asia Pacific (minus the majority of Asia Pacific),

so 4% of the world hasn't done something ~15% of the world has done in a situation that isn't even relevant to at least 18% of the world.

There was literally nothing stopping the US from following suit apart from culture and lobbying. You're the richest country in the world, it'd be a rounding error.

Other commenters have given plenty of reasons. I never understand the obsession Europeans have with getting other parts of the world to be identical to them. Worst part is when we do adopt your practices you start whining about how we copied you.

The interface of the terminal is usually decoupled, there are adapters built for terminals to retro-fit older systems.

Thanks to COVID contactless payments in my country are at 60% now.

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