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Swiping left on magnetic stripes

mastercard.com

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Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#131

Post by chousuke »

drclau wrote: 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:…

Living in Europe, I genuinely had no idea cards with magnetic stripes were still in use. I thought everything used chips nowadays.

I still prefer my card for contactless payments though; using my phone is not really much more convenient since my phone case holds the card anyway and it at least works consistently.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#132

Post by mullen »

djhworld wrote: post #63
drclau wrote: 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 stripe was needed. Every time I've been to the US it's still magnetic stripe in places like restaurants/bars where the wait staff whisk your card away and then 4 days later the charge ends up appearing on your card. I saw chip and pin (or sometimes the odd chip and sign) appearing in the big shops/chains like walgreens though so I guess it's slowly changing. I…

The Pandemic has really changed how credit cards are handled here. Pre-Pandemic, Tap and Pay was fairly rare, but now, it is everywhere (Nearly 90% by my informal count). The odd thing I noticed is that the smaller the market, the more likely the store/shop uses Tap and Pay. American's are also using their phone more to pay.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#133

Post by larrybud »

latchkey wrote: post #107

I'd prefer we just phase out MasterCard. I went to a restaurant the other day. QR code on the receipt. Scan that and it opens up Toast. Toast then connects to Apple Pay, which then connects to my credit card. No less than 3 middlemen to pay the restaurant, is absurd. QRCode -> Wallet on my phone holding stablecoin on a L2 like polygon (which is collecting APY through DeFi) -> Restaurant

While your point is valid regarding a crazy number of middlemen, I've also paid via the QR code on the receipt at a number of restaurants recently and I love it! No need to flag down a server when it's time to pay; I just scan it on my phone, click on apple pay, enter the tip, and I'm done!

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#134

Post by leotravis10 »

> Prepaid cards in the U.S. and Canada are currently exempt from this change.

I'm telling you all, prepaid cards are a scam. Why? One of the reasons besides massive fees and shady tactics for most are because they're so far behind the times. Most don't even have a chip for example. Look at a Netspend card (using it as a prime example) and compare it to any bank card today.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#135

Post by jjk166 »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #61
poopypoopington wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate – who cares? We've had magnetic strips for decades and they work fine. Yes, they're insecure but anti-fraud measures taken by the bank can mitigate that. If this helps more stores accept payments without having a painful transition isn't that worth it? I use Apple Pay most places but I don't mind having to use a strip once in a while or if others do.

>painful transition How painful could it possibly be to go and buy a new card reader? Why doesn't the payments provider offer them as part of the service? They are not so expensive.

The reader may be cheap, but the things its integrated with aren't. If it costs $20k to replace a gas pump and you have a half dozen pumps, the cost of replacing them might be comparable to the value of the gas station. A grocery store point of sale system is even more expensive, around $40k a pop. Maybe you're lucky and the manufacturer of your current setup has made it in such a way that the card reader can be swapped out without replacing the entire thing, but that's a big if.

It's not like this is an investment that will lead to more customers or new revenue, this is a big expense just to stay afloat. Getting financing for such an expenditure is extremely difficult. At least in a mixed ecosystem you might be able to recoup some of the cost selling your old equipment, but no one's going to buy it if it's going to stop working soon.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#136

Post by w3ll_w3ll_w3ll »

kuroguro wrote: post #70
lrem wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a new Mastercard in Europe this year, still with signature space. Same for Visa from two banks.

Couldn't find the exact card, but here's an example from my neighbors if anyone's interested. I guess it's not a thing everywhere yet. https://www.swedbank.lt/img/private/d2d/cards/3dSecure/816x2... _edit_ They dropped the requirement in 2018 https://www.mastercard.com/news/press/2018/signing-off-maste...

Nice video!

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#137

Post by vidanay »

aidenn0 wrote: post #35
drclau wrote: 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…

I've been in a retailer within the last two years that still used paper and and imprint machine to process credit cards.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#138

Post by bamboozled »

drclau wrote: 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:…

Try visiting Japan, it's like 1989, everywhere you go.

Re: Swiping left on magnetic stripes

#139

Post by tamaharbor »

zz865 wrote: post #39
gruez wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

Assuming US starts to let people in again.

Use the southern entrance.
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