Why is it sometimes you have to sign, sometimes pin, sometimes zip code, sometimes chip, sometimes swipe?
In: Technology
The method depends on the merchant and the devices they use to accept the payment. As of October 2017, all US merchants are required to accept the chip method because it is more secure. American tourists sometimes have trouble using non-chip cards in Europe because they made the conversion several years earlier.
My understanding is that the chips security comes from a sort of coded “transaction pin number” it generates for the next purchase. Basically this code is only able to be used once so hackers can only make one transaction before the card is flagged. This of course only applies to if the card is used as a chip card which is why there was a big push for everywhere to accept chip cards.
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