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Comment by NavinF | Hacker News Reader

It takes a few more seconds. Never gonna happen.

Do you say this because you believe that Americans are exceptional compared to the rest of the world? Because the rest of the modern world has made the change without trouble.

it’s because american corporations put profit above all else, and someone probably crunched the numbers and determined that faster transactions make them more money despite higher occurrences of fraud

How could entering a 4 digit PIN be slower than "printing a piece of receipt, handing over a pen and waiting for the customer to sign"?

Generally (at least in my part of the US) people stopped being asked to sign for small purchases several years ago; usually now convenience stores and big box stores under a certain dollar amount just ask you to tap a button instead of sign.

This is the same with PIN in Europe (at least for contactless): Below a certain amount you do not have to enter the PIN.

Signing is very rare these days, non-existent for small purchases... and still seemingly rare for larger ones. I've spent hundreds of dollars in single transactions without signature or pin.

When still requested, the signature is often just scrawling something into a signature box on a touch screen of the same device with the chip reader or contactless receiver. There might be some stylus dangling on a tether and often a spastic finger tip is sufficient to satisfy the UI.

How often do you have to do it though? It's only for high-value transactions (>£45) and the rest is contactless.

In Ireland I’ve had to enter a PIN for as little as 15 Euros. It’s very variable. Never run into this in Europe before and it’s been something of a pain because I don’t have a PIN on any of my personal cards. Fortunately I found I do have one on my corporate card.

The threshold varies between banks but there is often a limit as to how much you can spend or many times you can use "unverified" contactless payments (i.e. not Apple Pay which forces biometric verification) in a row before it will stop and demand a Chip+PIN transaction instead, to prevent someone who finds/steals a card from spending large amounts without ever needing to know the PIN.

For example, if the contactless limit is £100 and it only allows four contactless transactions in a row, the worst damage that can be done is £400, so banks and card issuers only need to manage the liability for fraudulent contactless transactions up to that amount (Visa and Mastercard call it "Zero Liability" protection).

I am nit sure how it works elsewhere but with NFC i can set limit when PIN is required . And with NFC on phone this gets preapproved by using biometrics.

So most people dont write PIN.

The time is moot in almost all situations as long as it doesn’t take you longer to enter the PIN than it does for a cashier to finish tallying items. The concern I’ve heard businesses raise is that people won’t remember it but that’s also a chicken and egg problem since people will remember what they use regularly.

Of course, since it’s the 2020s and not the 1990s we don’t need either since NFC is widely supported and an Apple/Google device transaction secured by biometrics on the client is far better and already widely supported.

Hm, where is it possible to enter the PIN that early? Everywhere I have seen the reader will only ask PIN once the full amount to be charged is known.

It takes less time, as the PIN is entered before the receipt is even printed.

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