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It's been about a month since American Express and Mastercard decided to stop requiring signatures for EMV chip credit cards. Now Visa is joining their ranks, making signatures optional for chipped transactions in North America.
"Visa is committed to delivering secure, fast and convenient payments at the point of sale," said VIsa's Dan Sanford in a statement. "Our focus is on continually evolving the market towards dynamic authentication methods such as EMV chip, as well as investing in emerging capabilities that leverage advanced analytics and biometrics. We believe making the signature requirement optional for EMV chip-enabled merchants is the responsible next step to enhance security and convenience at the point of sale."
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/12/visa-signatures-optional-credit-cards-emv/
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday January 15 2018, @05:47AM (5 children)
In Australia, the default limit without signature is $100 (AUD)
This is configurable by the vendor, but most don't know that, or bother)
disputed transactions under the limit are likley both minimal in number and easier to refund (by the bank) than pay someone to investigate.
Few will bother stealing a card to only ise it to buy a few groceries - real (worthwhile?) fraud requires online access to accounts.
YMMV, your country's consumer protection laws may be less effective, but convenience is backed by the banks' willingness to just refund problem payments (and possibly, "deal" with the vendor, if this happens too often).
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 15 2018, @06:03AM (2 children)
2 to 3% transaction fees seem more than adequate to cover fraud.
I invested in Visa shortly after they went public. They're up about 700% in the last 9 years, sustained 24% annual growth isn't bad...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 15 2018, @05:34PM (1 child)
That 2 to 3% transaction fee, plus, I suppose, the outrageous interest paid by people who actually borrow money on their credit cards, is what pays for a significant chunk of my personal flights, disney dollars, amazon dollars, etc.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 15 2018, @07:14PM
I used to think they made their money on interest and service charges, but I wonder (not enough to actually dig into a quarterly report)... on balance, those same people who incur the interest and service charges are probably the source of most, perhaps nearly all, of their late-payment, non-payment, default, bankrupcty, fraud and other issues.
Maybe in the past it cost more than 2% to manage the basic cash flow, but I'd bet it costs less than that now.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Monday January 15 2018, @04:32PM (1 child)
That only makes sense since it is the merchant who is assuming the liability for the transaction by choosing to not require a signature. If the charge is disputed the merchant is on the hook since they did not follow the verification protocol dictated by the credit network. Most merchants just choose to accept this level of risk rather than require a signature and add the 15-20 seconds that the signature requires to the time each checkout takes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pipedwho on Tuesday January 16 2018, @12:39AM
Not in Australia. The banks take on the risk of transactions below a certain value for 'Tap and Go' (wireless use of the card). That limit is usually $100. This is to allow people to use the wireless cards for many small transactions without the slow down of entering PINs (and getting them wrong). It's amazing how fast the checkouts are at cafes and other small shops.
From a security standpoint this may not seem like a good idea, but the banks can easily flick the threshold back to zero it was losing them too much money due to electronic fraud. Since the value is limited and small transactions are piecemeal by nature, someone electronically copying wireless card identities en-masse won't create a sudden catastrophic loss that can't be dealt with by temporarily enforcing PINs on certain cards while they sort things out.
The signature requirement has always been a joke, because most people's signatures hardly like the signature on the back of the card. It's probably always been about the banks having a way to stick it to merchants that are on the receiving end of a bad transaction.