I was listening to NPR on the way home and heard a piece about the new chip cards that do not have the magnetic strip. They are universal (?) in Europe and this raised a question for me as I have European clients at my summer shows. I called my bank to get the word. Business that have terminals, like the ski resorts here in CO have the devices that will process the cards. Mobile devices like iPads and phones do not (I use Aprivapay). For my use, I will have to manually enter the card number, date and security code. No estimate on when mobile devices would be updated.
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I'm all in favor of security measures to fight ID theft. But we must remember the cost to change over to chip & pin cards.
I just looked up the number of cards in use in America. As of 2010 there were 1,618,000,000 cards.
If you look it up by bank:
1. Chase – 119.4 million
2. Citi – 92 million
3. Bank of America – 80.2 million
4. Discover – 48 million
5. American Express – 46.5 million
6. Capital One – 46.3 million
7. HSBC – 38.8 million
8. GE Money – 27.2 million
9. Target – 23.4 million
10. Wells Fargo – 17.3 million
That's just the big guys. That doesn't include debit cards that would have to be changed too.
I guarantee there will be a pushback simply because of the costs involved.
Chris - I'm guessing that this ultimately won't cost the banks a nickel!
No, if they're anything like the big guys, they'll just pass along the cost to the consumers in the form of charges for the new card.
I have also heard of new credit card technology being developed that will have a small touch screen embedded in the card that will require the credit card holder to press in a four digit code on the card each time prior to the card being swiped. This seems like a step in the direction of increased theft security technology
I know a lot of people bash Square because customer service is by email only. Personally, I've never had a question that wasn't answered in a matter of a few hours.
And while you may prefer to get an answer from a human on the phone, there is plenty of easily found info on their web site. Here is what they say about chip cards in Canada:
"You can accept chip cards with Square. Because there is no place to read the chip or enter a PIN, they are run just like credit, using the magnetic stripe on the back of the card. You may also manually key-in the card number.
Note: While we currently cannot process Interac debit cards, we are looking at accepting a wider variety of cards in the future."
Instead of using the card as a chip and pin, in Canada, Square will read the magnetic strip info, as usual, for the time being. I suspect this will be the case in the US until the chip and pin reader is developed.
"The Square now has a phone number!!! 866-371-3453. If you go into contact us there's now a phone number and your unique "code" to identify you. The last piece they were missing was a phone number so this is GREAT!"
I don't know anything about wait times or quality of service but if you want to discuss chip and pin cards, you can now give Square a call.
I got a notification that Square now has a new reader and you will need to sign up for it before June 1 (their timing for a free one?!) Waiting for it to arrive. I have in the past ordered a second reader (for back-up) but there was not a place to order 2. May need to buy an extra.
From what I understand the old reader will not work after that date.
You can also buy them at all the major retailers. Guessing this has something to do with "the chip".
I have not received and communication from Square about needing a new card reader after June 1st.
I would like to think that they would automatically send out new updated card readers to existing users without having to sign up for it...
Pffftttt...Uh-oh...hope this wasn't a critter trying to get into my computer :[
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