The chip-and-pin mechanism when optimized is very low overhead, probably faster than using cash and not nearly as slow as signing a physical receipt.
For instance, one oft used optimization is that you can insert the card in the reader prior to the register sending the amount to the chip&pin terminal.
The correct way to implement chip-and-pin is alongside a paypass/paywave reader. Customers making purchases over $50 must use chip-and-pin, everyone else can just tap their wallets against the reader.
Some other problems with chip-and-pin:
- You get really cheap merchants who would prefer to waste your time rather than shell out for the contactless reader.
- You get international merchants who have no idea what's going on and make you sign two receipts in addition to entering your pin after trying and failing to swipe it twice.
- You have to type your pin in with your bare hands in -40C weather at the gas station.
- You have to tip waiters with them standing right there and judging you.
- It breaks square and the like
IMO it's an unnecessary mess for anything under ~$50.
I make several payments per day using chip&pin, according to my bank last month more than 300 pin transactions. That's 10 per day (travelling I do this a lot more than when I'm at home).
Online it's not a problem either (fairly easy integration here with a system called 'iDeal'), typing in your pin at -40C at the gas station is still a requirement with the current prices of gas and I'm not one bit bothered by 'waiters judging me', that's a self esteem issue, not a technical one.
As for international merchants who have no idea what is going on: I spend more time abroad than I do in my home country and chip-and-pin have made my life a lot easier than it ever was before in this respect.
Something like 7 countries in the last 3 weeks and I have yet to use my 'cash backup' or my 'credit card backup'.
Contactless is a nice technology but it is as far as I'm concerned a step backwards, I can see the advantages only for bars and festivals where the risk of contaminating your card with fluids is significant and purchases are very small (<$10).
> As for international merchants who have no idea what is going on: I spend more time abroad than I do in my home country and chip-and-pin have made my life a lot easier than it ever was before in this respect.
Well YMMV, of course, but here in Vietnam I've had to go around the other side of the checkout to type in my pin because the terminal was bolted to the desk. Multiple times. And then they still make me sign two receipts anyways.
Has a pretty explicit note that Vietnam is still primarily a cash based society, I think that is where your problems stem from, not necessarily from the technological merits or lack thereof of chip&pin.
Paypal provide a Chip-and-PIN payment system for mobile devices here in the UK[0]. It'll break Square no more than it breaks everything else; I have no doubt that Square already have a working prototype of such a thing.
> - You have to tip waiters with them standing right there and judging you.
In the US currently you write down the tip and leave, they can then charge you whatever they feel like after you're gone. As a tourist I was really paranoid about this, as by the time I looked at my statement when I got back I had no idea which charge was which restaurant and how much it should have been.
A common thing to do in the UK is pay without tip on card, then tip in cash
Yeah, right, there is lots that can be done. Sadly, also Germany is still somewhat backward in that regard. Every reader seems to work differently, so I’m always a bit hesitant to just stick in my card unprompted (and maybe prematurely), lest I get yelled at or something.
There is lots to optimise, but chip and PIN is not inherently slow. In fact, for me it’s already as fast as cash in most cases.
Correction: I meant "insert your card", not "swipe". Though low-cost transactions can still be authorised without having to enter a PIN, at least in the UK.
I was surprised to find in Safeway recently that a < ~$20 transaction required no signature either.