Live data from Hacker News

Swiping left on magnetic stripes

mastercard.com

51–60 of 325 posts

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#52

I'm pretty sure the magstripe is already somewhat disabled over here. My debit mastercard refuses to work outside of the European union unless I disable the geo locking in the banking app, and when my chip was broken the readers kept telling me to put the chip in.

That’s just a bit on the mag strip that encodes if your card has a chip present. You can flip it with a writer and use the magnet strip again if you want. It’s quicker as one doesn’t have to wait for the Javacard OS on the chip to boot up and handshake. (Ie swipe and walk away vs insert, wait 4 seconds, remove). Wouldn’t do this on my debit card but it’s fine on credit cards with chargeback protection.

Interesting. That said, no desire to do this. I do effectively 100% of my transactions by watch now and that beats any alternative.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#53
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

I heard that gas station pumps were a big blocker for a while.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#54
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signatures are for you, not the card company. This is why I sign with a nonce.

No, they're for the merchant. They don't benefit me at all. But merchants were supposed to stop requiring them by now.

They're supposed to help you locate fraudulent transactions after your card is stolen. I guess that benefits the merchant because it makes you less likely to mark legitimate transactions as fraudulent.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#55
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

I think the merchants are the bottleneck in this case

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#56
post #35
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

The USA is a big holdup. I just traveled across the country and there are still filling (petrol) stations where the only card reader is stripe. See also other comments about the stripe being a fallback for chip as chip readers on POS terminals seem to be more fragile than magnetic stripe readers. FWIW, Contactless is very hit-or-miss for me in the US; about 1/3 the time it just doesn't work at all (even with multiple…

On your point about contact less being hit-or-miss, this very much goes away when you have a number of options for vendors to choose from on the market, with terminals being supplied mainly by banks who want the business. Both competition and a lack of desire to deal with merchants having issues with the payment system provided lead to increases in reliability.

The overseas market has been saturated with chips for 10-15 years, and contact less for 5+, probably notably more.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#57
post #32
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

The only reason I’ve started using my card lately is because Face ID is harder with a mask on.

Just in case you have an Apple Watch and weren’t aware, or you plan to get one, there’s this feature that made my life easier:

Unlock your iPhone with Apple Watch when you're wearing a face mask

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212208

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#58
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

It really is mind blowing to me. Especially in a pandemic, why why why require a signature for anything? This is one of the few things that would reduce exposure that we already have a technical solution for. I just don’t understand.

As others have said, it doesn't have to be. Much of the world has long moved on from mag stripes and signatures.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#59

> By 2033, no Mastercard credit and debit cards will have magnetic stripes I wouldn't be surprised if, by 2033, people will be identified using biometrics everywhere, so you can pay with your hand print or face scan.

Maybe FedNow could take over the mobile payment industry depending on how truly instant it is, and become similar the role WePay takes in China.

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#60
post #28
post #12

Why does it take so long? Where’s the bottleneck? Where I lived over the last years (two countries in Europe), I don’t even have to use the physical card. I just use contactless payments with the phone. Prior to that, it was contactless with card. Even ATMs work with contactless (not all, yet). Prior to that, it was chip. I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic stripe was needed. (edit) Think of this:…

>I honestly don’t even recall the time when the magnetic strip was needed. for when you fly over to the US and need to use your card

I'm in the US. The only places I've seen in the last year or so that still use the magnetic stripes are gas stations, and all the ones I usually go to take the chip.
Post reply on HN