Why do you have to put in your debit pin in person, but not online?
In: Economics
Your payment card PIN is something that is known only to you and to your bank. When you use a payment terminal or ATM, it is communicating directly with your bank, so it’s OK to send your PIN, because only your bank will see it.
When you are making a purchase online however, you aren’t communicating directly with your bank; you are sending your payment information to the merchant, who then later relays the info to your bank. You can’t send your PIN in that case, because the merchant would be able to see it, and you don’t want that.
Instead, when making online purchases, you enter your name, card number, CVV code and zip code. It’s OK for the merchant to see those things in order to process the payment, and merchants can even save the details for future payments
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