Question
Typically in Europe credit cards come with some sort of "smart chip". So instead of readers in which you swipe your card, the typical (Proton, etc) credit card readers in many European stores are set up so you put the card in partway (I presume it reads the smart chip, but obviously it can't read the swipe strip that way), and if you present a US credit card the clerk has to swipe it and then it takes forever longer.
Anyone heard if any US credit cards have or are looking into having these kinds of chips, implemented in a Europe-compatible way?
And how much of the rest of the world (besides Europe) uses these kinds of cards, and is there one standard, or (other than swipe strips) are each region's machine readability standards different?
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There are (were?) several card with "smart chip" AmEx Blue and a First USA/Bank One card comes to my mind.
For some reason, "smart chip" credit card never got popular over here.
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Citibank has a smart card with the built in smart chip. They even provide you with a smart card reader for your home PC.
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Interesting question. While none of my European (=German) credit cards currently has a smart chip, my only US credit card (Fleet) has such a chip and came with a free smart card reader.
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Originally posted by Rawhide:
Citibank has a smart card with the built in smart chip. They even provide you with a smart card reader for your home PC.
Do you know if it's possible to get a smart card version of any Citibank card (say, an AAdvantage MasterCard?), or does is it only available for a particular type of Citibank card?
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I think the problem in the US is that each of the card associations, large banks, and Amex have all allowed the smartcard issue to be hijacked by the marketing and business development departments, rather than loss prevention. That is, each one seems to want to have an "exclusive" feature that will motivate people to switch to their card instead of using the feature to actually reduce fraud. There always seems to be talk about storing all sorts of crazy things such as medical records, virtual currency, and all sorts of other nonsense that has nothing to do with preventing the use of counterfeit cards.
This is evidenced by the fact that they can't seem to agree on a standard to use, and all seem to want to promote a scheme that they coincidentally have a heavy hand in controlling.
The French may be the French, but they did this one right: as Stefan mentioned, they have a universal system where all Visa/MasterCard cards issued have a smart chip, and all merchants have a compatible terminal. Meanwhile, the few banks in the US that issue smartcards are tripping over themselves to hand out readers to their cardholders, rather than getting them in the hands of merchants.
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I wouldn't necessarily call the smart chip idea for credit cards a "European" standard. As the post above mine indicates, the credit (unfortunately) goes to only the French on this one. It's called the "Carte Bleue," and is a standard that is added to their Visa cards or may even be issued without the Visa account for use only in France.
As others mentioned, you put the card into a reader, punch your pin, and you're done. But the Carte Bleue system works only in France, and cards from other countries don't work in the French chip readers. (i.e. American Express "Blue" cards, and Swiss debit cards, both of which use completely different standards). You still are stuck with the magnetic stripe. Note that other countries' chip cards also don't work in the chip readers provided for state-run services - the SNCF rail automated ticket machines, and some of the new parking card meters that accept cards.
I actually tried getting a Carte Bleue once when I was spending a lot of time in France -- it was far more trouble than its worth. To get one, you need a French bank account. To get a French bank account, you must have a French address. To get a French address, well...I need more money than I've got.
Until there's some kind of world standard then, like GSM for credit cards, we're stuck with what we've got. <shrug>
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Indeed, the smart chip is a french patent (from Roland Moreno).
But it was a long way to convince the french banks to use smart chip to secure bank cards.
The universal use of smart chips on Visa/Mastercards issued in France is due to the fact that all cards must use the standards of GIE Carte Bleue. As the group decided to introduce smart chips to secure payments , the issuing banks had no other choice as to accept one standard.
The general use of smart chips reduced the fraud dramatically in France. Payments are very quick and easy : for smaller amounts, the PIN is checked offline by the payment terminal using the chip and no authorisation is needed. For larger amounts, online authorisation is required.
For internet payments, french banks offer now the e-card : a one-time "virtual" card number + expiration date is generated by the bank for the requested amount. This one-time number is then used for the payment as a normal credit card number + exp. date .
The "electronic purse" function is also available with the smart chips (allowing to "store" a few hundred Euros on the chip to make small payments).
Now, french cards get new chips to ensure compatibility with a future european standard.
Amex and Diners (in France) don't use smart chips, as both are not members
of GIE Carte Bleue. The magnetic stripe + signature are used.
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I wouldn't necessarily call the smart chip idea for credit cards a "European" standard. As the post above mine indicates, the credit (unfortunately) goes to only the French on this one. It's called the "Carte Bleue," and is a standard that is added to their Visa cards or may even be issued without the Visa account for use only in France.
As others mentioned, you put the card into a reader, punch your pin, and you're done. But the Carte Bleue system works only in France, and cards from other countries don't work in the French chip readers.
So it the "Proton" system that's in Belgium (I saw it all over Belgium, and I've never yet been in France) a completely different, incompatible one? If so (or even if those are the only two countries on the system), yet another thing to shatter the myth of the EU uniting commerce in Europe.
In the average Belgian store (which caters MOSTLY to locals), they look at you like you're from the moon if you present a Visa card that has to swiped; the only machine for customers to do anything with by themselves is a reader where you have to insert the card halfway in from one end, obviously incompatible with swipe-only cards. (I had to give my cards to the clerks for swiping, and authorization often seemed to take forever.)
And there's so used to accepting (almost) only Proton-compatible cards, that they don't even bother to put "standard" credit card logos on display anywhere (except some stores in more touristy areas), so I can't even guess which of my credit cards would work at a given store.
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Interesting ... I have only US cards (mag stripe). I carried MC, VISA, and DC with me when we went to Europe. Nowhere in the Uk or France did I have any trouble at all in getting the cards accepted.
The French telephone card is a "smart" card (I think) with embedded chip, but other than that, that's the only one I saw, and we were in France from Paris to Nice last Fall.
I never gave it a second thought.
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The French telephone card is a "smart" card (I think) with embedded chip, but other than that, that's the only one I saw, and we were in France from Paris to Nice last Fall.
All french cards do have a chip.
If you want to see how french cards look like : www.carte-bleue.fr