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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

I’m honestly surprised the move to contactless hasn’t occurred faster, as the costs for hardware seem lower for nfc versus chip.

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In the US retailers don't want to lose customer tracking they can do with fixed card numbers. This is why you see nonsense like "Kroger Pay" and other store specific payment apps. The hardware exists in nearly every terminal that supports EMV (Chip and pin/signature), the retailers just haven't turned it on.

Meanwhile, with my Samsung phone and its mag strip emulation, I can use my phone nearly everywhere anyway even if the store doesn't want to support NFC.

Tracking is traditionally done with discount cards, and they are compatible with all payment methods. And there are applications that aggregate those discount cards in software: a discount card is just a short ID, nothing fancy.

That's true in grocery stores but not other retailers.

For consumer commerce, between the contactless and the smart chips this should be solved.

Someone else said the number is 'hidden' from the users but it's not hiding versus not hiding that's the problem. It's that for e-commerce the human has to transcribe the number by hand. You can't hide it, except via another system.

>except via another system

AFAIK, that's how the first version of 3D secure worked: you were redirected to your bank site and authenticated the payment there.

It only hasn't moved in the US. In Australia, nearly all CC transactions are contactless, with the floor limit at AUD100 (USD70).

During the pandemic, I haven't used cash for the last 6 months.

It's more of a no-pin limit. Payments above AUD100 can still be contactless, the POS terminal asks for the card's pin. I'm not sure if there's a hard limit at all to NFC payments. I've done some >$1000 transactions contactless.

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