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Comment by furyg3 | Hacker News Reader

Here in NL there's been chip and pin for forever, and 'signing' for a transaction is laughable from a Dutch perspective. Chip + PIN is everywhere, to the point that many merchants don't even accept cash anymore, too much of a liability and hassle. Nor do most places accept credit cards... Chip+PIN is authenticated and secure (online, no offline mode is supported), the merchant fees are low (€0.05/transaction or lower), and the transaction is immediate and not reversible... no dealing with chargebacks.

If you can find a place that takes credit cards, the dutch cards will also use Chip+PIN. Non-PIN credit cards (mostly americans) can swipe, but they'll almost certainly have to enter their PIN... In the many times I've used my US CC in NL I've never had to sign.

Now that RFID transactions are becoming more popular it will be interesting to see how this all develops.

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Are you sure no offline mode is supported for Chip+PIN cards?

I don't know about the Netherlands, but it's typically used where the risk is low, or making on-line transactions is inconvenient. For example, paying for a train ticket on-board a train (data signal is unreliable, the real loss to the train company is negligible) or buying fast food.

I'm pretty sure offline is supported, unfortunately in the UK despite this some train services have online-only chip+PIN machines in their buffet car, forcing you to wait until they get good signal to pay for your food!

Tesco use offline processing in many stores.

It's visible to the customer as a much faster process -- you can remove your card around a second after you enter your PIN, instead of waiting 4-5 seconds for authorization.

I think normally cards get a limit of offline transactions before they have to do an online one. I think it's about 7 or so before an online transaction is "forced".

This seems about the correct number. It is similar to how the contactless support works. You are forced to use the traditional Chip and Pin method occasionally. It seemed to be about 5 transactions for contactless initially but I feel they have increased the limit now.

I know of one place: on an airplane. They only accept cash and creditcard because cc payments will be delayed until they have signal on the ground.

RFID is all over the place here in Australia. It's fantastically easy - just a quick tap and you're done. If you need more than a certain cap (A$100? A$150?), you need to switch to chip + pin, but for anything less, it's hard to see how it could be any easier.

Where in the US were you that was still imprinting in 2001?

Not the OP, but I used a taxi in NYC last year that still used the imprint machine.

>Where in the US were you that was still imprinting in 2001?

-The east coast, Cape Cod area - if I remember correctly, I was having dinner in Falmouth or perhaps in Woods Hole when the imprinting device appeared. Could have been backup for their normal credit card machine, though - didn't think to ask at the time.

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