It's an obvious one, which indicates a superficial understanding of the financial industry and technology in particular. Credit cards, and their use, was from the outset largely an American phenomenon. When Europe finally caught up (and to this day, in the year 2017 there are still businesses that don't have credit card infrastructure set up - meanwhile even mobile food trucks in the US offer it), Americans had already built out the infrastructure and found out about the hard issues - which gave Europeans time to implement a better solution, which was chip + pin.
But all that aside, the real question is, why are you still using a physical credit card? In the US, I can use Apple/Google Pay at nearly every business I find, and all of the large banks and most regional and smaller firms offer support for their products on the platform.
When will Europe catch up with banking technology?
It's almost like you've never even been to Europe, and all you shop at in the U.S. is McDonald's, Chipotle and Starbucks.
For around a decade, many cities, example Prague, have accepted text message based payments for public transit. Today most public transit systems have their own apps for payment and ticketing. I can't think of a single U.S. city that does this. They're all exact change only or proprietary ticketing systems.
About the most advanced I can recall, Citi had a short lived tap and pay, NFC based, project in the NYC subway 10 years ago. You still got the 10% metrocard discount. It was ultra proprietary though, Citi cards only.
And then Citi and Amex went and ripped NFC out of all my credit cards for this slow EMV chip. Haha yeah, when will Europe catch up. What we did is catch up with their 3 decade old chip idea.
> I can't think of a single U.S. city that does this. They're all exact change only or proprietary ticketing systems
MBTA in Boston had the mTicket app for mobile ticketing and payments for years. I live in Boston and use the app regularly. Can't comment on other cities because when I visit for a short trip I typically don't bother installing apps.
Amtrak and most airlines use mobile boarding passes too. Interestingly enough, on my recent trip to Europe I used the mobile boarding pass in Logan airport just like everyone else. But in Frankfurt when I showed my phone to the agent they looked at me like I was from another planet, probably thinking "stipid americans"
And while we're on the subject of transportation, about 5 years ago I visited a bunch of european countries, including my home country in Europe, and at that time the only way to call a cab was via dialing the local phone number, cash only of course. Funny because on that trip heading to the airport in the States was matter of acouple taps in the Uber app.
> When Europe finally caught up (and to this day, in the year 2017 there are still businesses that don't have credit card infrastructure set up - meanwhile even mobile food trucks in the US offer it), Americans had already built out the infrastructure and found out about the hard issues - which gave Europeans time to implement a better solution, which was chip + pin.
It was a US based in the beginning - but by the time Chip + PIN started there was significant infrastructure already in place. Its not like we all just started to use cards in 2005
> But all that aside, the real question is, why are you still using a physical credit card? In the US, I can use Apple/Google Pay at nearly every business I find, and all of the large banks and most regional and smaller firms offer support for their products on the platform.
Sure - that is down to market forces, not banking tech. There are banks here where I can use both Apple / Android pay, and all merchants take it (by virtue of our advanced usage of contactless payments - another thing that was introduced before the US).
What other areas is the US more advanced in (bank tech wise) ? We have online only banks, push notifications for transactions, and all the other things I see advertised by US banks.
> It was a US based in the beginning - but by the time Chip + PIN started there was significant infrastructure already in place. Its not like we all just started to use cards in 2005
Sure, but it was far more widespread in the United States. Even now, to this day, there are businesses all over Europe (I just did an 11-country tour not long ago) that simply don't take credit cards. In the United States, even student organizations take credit cards for selling things like shirts. Europeans haven't been using credit and debit cards like Americans have, and so even though similar infrastructure has existed, it hasn't existed to the same extent as it has in the United States. It follows that retooling the infrastructure costs significantly more in the United States, as every "swipe machine" had to be replaced with a machine that accepted a chip. Everything from drive-up ATMs to Square, to gasoline pumps have to be replaced. At this point we're kind of conflating technology with economics and market dynamics, but it's worth pointing out that it's not a lack of technology that made the US swipe-only for so long, but market forces. If, it cost me less money to deal with swipe fraud than it does to replace all of my credit card machines... what do you think a business would do?
> Sure - that is down to market forces, not banking tech. There are banks here where I can use both Apple / Android pay, and all merchants take it (by virtue of our advanced usage of contactless payments - another thing that was introduced before the US).
How do you arrive at this conclusion? I don't recall being able to use contactless payments anywhere in Italy, for example. Not that it doesn't exist, but my impression from visiting Europe and living in the United States has been that contactless payments are far more ubiquitous in the States than the countries I've visited in Europe.
> What other areas is the US more advanced in (bank tech wise) ? We have online only banks, push notifications for transactions, and all the other things I see advertised by US banks.
I find most European cities are cashless, and accept MasterCard and Visa as well as the local country issuer for payments, attached to a local bank account.
You might have been running into the fact credit cards have much higher merchant fees, even if it's probably a violation of their EMV merchant agreement to refuse to accept these cards.
I see zero meaningful advancement of payments in the U.S. over Europe, to the contrary. There are more cash only restaurants in the U.S. especially if you're not in a big city, it's quite common. I think your opinion is based on a very limited experience across the U.S. and Europe.
And EFT payments in the U.S. are incredibly slow compared to their European counterparts. The fastest bank to bank transfer is Fedfunds wire, and that costs money, upwards of $30 for each party. It's cheap or free in Scandanavian and European cities.
I really have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to American innovation in this area... I see it as yet another example of American pay more to get less sort of classist mantra. Oh but if you have more money, and pay more fees, agree to give away more personal data in the EULA, you can get better services!
I have been using contactless payments for years here, and the 4 other EU countries I have been in this year, all accepted contactless. You may not have been able to use a US contactless card, but people do use it. It is also worth noting that each country in Europe has a different culture and history, which inform the choices people make with banks, and particularly credit cards.
Scale - sure, the US is larger than any of the EU countries population wise - but not sure how that is "innovation".
Blockchain - work on blockchain tech is global - American companies even export the R&D to EU countries ;)
Products + Payments - there is nothing ground breaking in the US, that is not in the rest of the world
But all that aside, the real question is, why are you still using a physical credit card? In the US, I can use Apple/Google Pay at nearly every business I find, and all of the large banks and most regional and smaller firms offer support for their products on the platform.
When will Europe catch up with banking technology?