I really don't understand what is going on in the US. Here in antediluvian London Applepay or NFC works virtually instantaneously- as fast as your phone receives the NFC handshake and you press the appropriate digit to the phone's home button the transaction is done, 2, 3 seconds max? Similarly, chip and pin works as fast as you can key in your pin. Chip and sign? What on earth is the point of that? A stolen card is no more secure than a magnetic stripe card. And as for magnetic stripes, they are disappearing off many cards and most places won't accept a signed transaction anyway. Time to get with the 20 century! I just wonder what is the underlying reason for this not being rolled out faster. Who gains?
The only added security of chip and sign is that a cloned card will not work, making harvested card numbers less useful.
I don't buy that. I have used ApplePay at several merchants (e.g. Harris Teeter) where the chip cards were still disabled, but where I could use NFC. So it doesn't seem that EMV is required for ApplePay to work.
Only the EMV reader is required. If they have disabled the MagStripe or Chip reader, the NFC can still function, and NFC is still better than mag stripe in all circumstances.
100% of businesses in Canada have switched over, but not every place has NFC because many businesses switched over a little too early so they have chip+in terminals with no NFC. For example the 7-11 that I live closest to, only started accepting NFC in the last three months, and their hardware is othewise identical. The reason likely has to do with their bank not having it setup or not in their contract, or any number of nonsense meddling.
Various locations in the food court at the mall also don't have NFC enabled on their terminals, or have drastically different procedures. For example, Burger King and NYC Fries both have TD terminals with no tap-to-pay, Arbys has I believe a Chase terminal, but used to have a TD terminal, and now accepts tap to pay (this switch over came around the same time they switched their POS systems to ones like McDonalds)
So many vendors in Canada can't/don't accept NFC because their POS systems don't have it enabled or don't have the software configured for it. But all the EMV chips work. If you use an American chip card on any of them, they switch to "chip+sign" mode and don't ask for a PIN. That makes me wonder how American chip cards are supposed to be more secure if it doesn't do anything to verify the card. Yeah sure, using a cloned card might be harder if all terminals go EMV-only, but until such time that happens, there is still nothing stopping someone from just copying the magstripe off a chip card, changing the "use chip" flag to off, and going wild with it.
Very few places have chip-and-sig setup, and even fewer require it. Yet, there are many places that have been and still take Apple Pay, and many retail clerks don't even know Apple Pay works until I do it.
Considering most of the rest of the world is living with chip readers, I think it's more a question of perception than anything.
It's not perception. Chip card readers are slower compared to swiping your card. A swipe is instant. Chip card readers take longer to read the chip, then you have to enter your pin, and finally your transaction is complete. They are slower all over the world compared to using swipe. I know since I travel around the world all the time. Having said that, I still think it's good we are finally switching over to chip card readers because they are way more secure.
Apple Pay feels as fast or faster than swiping a card, but the chip cards are dog slow. I wonder if that's the result of a passive chip compared to the active system of an NFC-based system. Some terminals can easily take over 15 seconds and 10 seconds seem to be the minimum time for it to complete the purchase.
October was the dumbest month to choose to have a new implementation of something in a retail environment. Right before Christmas shopping season. It should have been March 1.
The software incompatibilities I have heard about from several different retailers, the lack of experience on both sides of the counter with the new technology, the long holiday lines, most said screw it. And now? Well, they'll get to it...
Then by all means come up her to Canada, we're all set with terminals everywhere so it … Oh rats, I keep forgetting, we also have a roadblock, a f… greedy bank cartel. Unfortunately it takes 2 to tango with Apple Pay, reasonable banks and enabled retailer terminals. Hope we'll be able to dance soon … and with a popular girl, not Amex.
My wife is always making fun of me. She has a Samsung Note 5 and whenever I ask the associate if I can pay with my iPhone, they say no. My wife says"move over"and pays with her Note 5. She gives me the "haha" look. I hate when she does that!!
It's not perception. Chip card readers are slower compared to swiping your card. A swipe is instant. Chip card readers take longer to read the chip, then you have to enter your pin, and finally your transaction is complete. They are slower all over the world compared to using swipe. I know since I travel around the world all the time. Having said that, I still think it's good we are finally switching over to chip card readers because they are way more secure.
Apple Pay feels as fast or faster than swiping a card, but the chip cards are dog slow. I wonder if that's the result of a passive chip compared to the active system of an NFC-based system. Some terminals can easily take over 15 seconds and 10 seconds seem to be the minimum time for it to complete the purchase.
I think it's because many terminals with chips are simply underpowered with a very slow back-end, the best ones like the ones at McD are pretty fast, a lot faster than 10-15 seconds, more like 1-3 seconds max.
My wife is always making fun of me. She has a Samsung Note 5 and whenever I ask the associate if I can pay with my iPhone, they say no. My wife says"move over"and pays with her Note 5. She gives me the "haha" look. I hate when she does that!!
Don't ask the associate. Just try it with your iPhone. More than likely, if it works with another phone's NFC payment app, it will work with Apple Pay too.
Apple should encourage retailers to go to the effort to make Apple Pay work, and work smoothly.
How about an Apple Pay secret shopper program? Apple sends a test customer into stores to make a purchase using Apple Pay, then the tester asks to see the manager.
If everything worked, the tester gives the cashier and the manager $100.
If there were problems, the tester offers tech support.
Sorry, but what the fuck is wrong with US retailers? Up here in Canada, it's like 99%. I literally do not remember the last time I had to swipe a card. 80% of the time I use tap to pay, the remainder 20% is chip and pin.
Comments
100% of businesses in Canada have switched over, but not every place has NFC because many businesses switched over a little too early so they have chip+in terminals with no NFC. For example the 7-11 that I live closest to, only started accepting NFC in the last three months, and their hardware is othewise identical. The reason likely has to do with their bank not having it setup or not in their contract, or any number of nonsense meddling.
Various locations in the food court at the mall also don't have NFC enabled on their terminals, or have drastically different procedures. For example, Burger King and NYC Fries both have TD terminals with no tap-to-pay, Arbys has I believe a Chase terminal, but used to have a TD terminal, and now accepts tap to pay (this switch over came around the same time they switched their POS systems to ones like McDonalds)
So many vendors in Canada can't/don't accept NFC because their POS systems don't have it enabled or don't have the software configured for it. But all the EMV chips work. If you use an American chip card on any of them, they switch to "chip+sign" mode and don't ask for a PIN. That makes me wonder how American chip cards are supposed to be more secure if it doesn't do anything to verify the card. Yeah sure, using a cloned card might be harder if all terminals go EMV-only, but until such time that happens, there is still nothing stopping someone from just copying the magstripe off a chip card, changing the "use chip" flag to off, and going wild with it.
The software incompatibilities I have heard about from several different retailers, the lack of experience on both sides of the counter with the new technology, the long holiday lines, most said screw it. And now? Well, they'll get to it...
Unfortunately it takes 2 to tango with Apple Pay, reasonable banks and enabled retailer terminals. Hope we'll be able to dance soon … and with a popular girl, not Amex.