Mark Tinka wrote: > I hope the U.S. does catch-up. If we were swipe-based here, we'd all be > broke :-). I know a number of major merchants in the U.S. now use PIN's, > and I always stick to those when I travel there.
In the U.S., pin codes are required for EFTPOS transactions (called debit) over interbank networks like Pulse, STAR, etc Swipe-and-sign (and now just swipe for small amounts) is for Visa, Mastercard, Discover transactions (called credit) Skimming and card fraud is actually uncommon in the U.S. these days, and the police are very effective at combating it. It's just cheaper for the industry to eat fraud losses than to "upgrade" systems. The transition to chip-based cards was a debacle. -- S.C.
