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I remember doing offline debit card payments 10y ago in a flight

they would pass the card with one of those old engraving things lol

I think it’s still pretty frequent even nowadays. I have payment cards with systematic authorization and and others without and I can totally see the difference.

Transactions with the cards requiring authorization will take several seconds while with my other cards it will be instant most of the time.

It depends on the configuration of the terminal : most merchant will allow offline (or asynchronous) transactions up to a certain amount when there is an important flux of customers waiting to pay.

I’m also pretty sure (that’s speculation at that point but I felt it in my experience) that some cards have more chances to have instant (offline) transactions than others. The more « premium » the cards the less I saw the "waiting for authorization" screen. Especially for small amounts.

I remember paying at a bike repair shop that used a physical card imprinter [1], some, I don't know, 15 years ago?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_imprinter

About 15 years ago I remember paying for fast food delivery where the delivery guy put your card under the carbon paper bill and just rubbed a pen sideways back and forth over it a few times

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