Correct. In the US, whenever I insert my card to use the chip, it takes forever (as you watch the Do Not Remove Your Card prompt). When I've used the same card for swiping (not using the chip), it completes right away.

What I love is you have to carefully watch the screen to pull the card out when it's done, otherwise it starts a really harsh a beep that's designed to prevent you from forgetting your card, but is just flat out obnoxious if you haven't.

And the screen's text are fairly similar regardless of what it's asking, and if there was some sort of error inserting it (damn things often trip before the card's fully inserted), then it makes the same gosh damned sound to remove it. I even had one beep to get my attention to not take the card out.

I feel awkward and foolish with it, since it's ostensibly so simple, but so inconsistent. Add in a watching-water-boil time delay, and it's just a great recipe for social anxiety. One wrong move can jam the works. (Like, I once pulled the card out too early when I heard it beep at a Target and the register had to cancel the order and restart.)

That's just really weird, because no where else is it that slow. I know others says 10 seconds, but it is much much faster than that. Here in Denmark tap to pay with credit card, well debit cards mostly, is practically instant. Honestly it's often to fast. I find myself think that I didn't pay because it to fast for me to register.

Tap to pay isn't what's slow in the US, it is the chipped cards that need to be inserted into a POS device. For whatever reason they are absurdly slow. That should be great news for NFC payment services though, Apple/Android pay seem like speed demons in comparison.

> it is the chipped cards that need to be inserted into a POS device.

Weird. In Germany, it's usually very, very fast (recently, using my Number26 CC, payment in three seconds including PIN entry, and ten seconds later I got the push notification on my phone).

But that may also very well be because it's rare here to see outdated terminals. Most retail chains change their card terminals every two or three years, because they listen to their customers who actively demand speedy transactions. Oh, and because stores usually don't own the terminals but rent them (cheapest solutions are at < 20€/month and terminal). Downside: CC fees for merchants can range up to 4%, most of it goes to the CC providers.

>CC fees for merchants can range up to 4%, most of it goes to the CC providers.

It mostly seems smaller merchants simply don't switch their acquirer to get cheaper rates and complain about "high costs". FWIW, credit cards are capped at 0.3% interchange (which is what the bank gets), debit cards at 0.2% since last year. Scheme fees for MasterCard/Visa are peanuts and even AmEx doesn't cost 4%.

For example see https://www.cashforless.de.

Visa/MasterCard credit and debit 0.98% German debit (girocard) 0.25%

That would certainly explain why chains like REWE actually set up their own card acquirer... and yes, with the cheap terminals I actually referred to C4L (disclaimer: not related by work, just a happy customer).

> But that may also very well be because it's rare here to see outdated terminals. Most retail chains change their card terminals every two or three years, because they listen to their customers who actively demand speedy transactions.

The only terminals in the US that take the chipped cards are brand new (because the cards themselves are new and the deadline to accept them isn't quite here yet). I don't know why they are so slow, but they are all brand new machines.

Race to the bottom. Realize that the chip is a computer and performs crypto functions. Slower chip = cheaper chip.

I asked the manager at the local grocery store why they had chip readers but didn't enable them. They want to be ready in case the system becomes less awful. He described exactly the problems mentioned here.

Just agreeing here and adding another point of data. Everywhere I've used my card there is a 30 second delay in the processing.