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Hey Credit Card Companies: Its supposed to be Chip AND Pin
Why, 8 months after the deadline for Chip and Pin credit cards do we STILL not have BOTH, and often NEITHER in the the US commercial market space?
October 2015 was the deadline for the liability shift, but adoption of the technology has been slower than expected.
Only 50 percent of U.S. retailers were expected to be able to handle EMV chip technology as of June, according to data from consulting firm The Strawhecker Group.
Many have speculated that it was individual stores and retail chains that were holding up the move to more secure credit card handling. That may not be the case.
A new lawsuit filed by Home Depot claims that it was the Credit Card companies, Visa and Master Card, that were fighting Chip and Pin to protect their absurdly high card clearing fees while pocketing money meant for fraud protection.
"For years, Visa and MasterCard have been more concerned with protecting their own inflated profits and their dominant market positions than with the security of the payment cards used by American consumers and the health of the United States economy," the June 13 lawsuit begins.
The complaint says Visa and MasterCard deserve blame for why "United States consumers experience the highest rates of payment card fraud in the world, and United States businesses are subject to the highest payment card related fees in the world."
Home Depot says Visa and MasterCard spent years repelling this technology — a combination of personal identification numbers and EMV chips — even as credit card fraud and debit card fraud "drain billions of dollars" from the U.S. economy every year.
In addition to dragging its foot on Chip credit cards, the card companies and clearing houses still resist the Pin portion of the new cards, as well as signature verification practices by merchants. The Pin was supposed to substitute for a visual signature verification - comparing the card to the signed receipt. Credit card companies actively oppose both because they fear it will reduce card usage.
The story appears in a long posting at Courthouse News Service [courthousenews.com], which goes on to cover a price fixing claim made in the same lawsuit by Home Depot.
Submitter's Note: In a recent cross country trip, far less than half the credit card purchases offered Chip Card readers, and of those that did, not one asked for my pin. I've never had to enter a pin anywhere in the US, but frequently did in Canada.
