It's not the cost of conversion, it's that the fraud just vanishes in the insane rents American credit card processors extract. In the EU, these fees are limited to 0.3% for CC and 0.2% for debit cards, so there is less margin to just keep paying the fraudsters instead of updating systems.

They have the new readers but they don't use them

Notable the article is from Canada. Here in Canada virtually all retailers have been using chip+pin for a good number of years now. The same in the UK, where they have been using it for over 10 years. Retailers have to use chip+pin to avoid fraud liability.

In the USA, however, a lot of retailers were still using signatures up until a year or two. It seems to be only in the last year that retailers are starting to move to chip+pin. I think it is simply the large number of credit card terminals, and the cost of upgrading them all.

They are not moving to chip and pin, but chip and signature: very different.

Now, the internet being a bigger share of retail every year, chip and pin is not an improvement: what we need is 2FA across the board. You have my CC number? Great. Without my 2FA secret, you won't be able to charge me anyway.

This 2FA beats a pin, and would make payment fraud so much smaller, it'd become a minor thing, but good luck finding a bank in the US offering such feature for all charges.

>They are not moving to chip and pin, but chip and signature: very different.

No, that's not quite true. They are moving to chip+pin, but some card issuers are not currently issuing PINs. However the machines themselves fully support chip+pin (and I can confirm this, as most places in the USA now require me to enter a PIN for my card).

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/emv-faq-chip-car...

And even if you want a PIN for your card, the credit card company doesn't know how to give it to you. Last summer, before I went to a conference in Canada, I called all 3 of my credit cards's customer service departments trying to get a PIN (American Express, Discover, MasterCard), and none of them would issue a PIN for my chip'ed card. I don't think any of the CSRs even knew what I was talking about. One even told me that PIN's were "just for debit cards". Sigh.

I use a debit card with a pin and some retailers still do a signature transaction for me without any choice.

Some European banks implement that second factor, although most commonly using an SMS or phone call.

Mine only does it when the transaction is large, or unusual. I get a call asking me to confirm the transaction. Maybe they ask some other information, I can't remember.

That sounds awful, how would I use my card when I'm traveling abroad if it's trying to send SMS's to my home SIM card?

I've only had it happen for over-the-phone purchases, and when using a debit card to transfer about £5000 via TransferWise.

I haven't been to the USA for a while, and most other countries have a working (not new) Chip+PIN system, but I assume magstripe transactions would be considered higher risk too.

It's been easy for me - I call my bank ahead of time and tell them where I'll be going,the duration of my stay and my number while I'm there. They usually ask for a backup number just in case I'm not reachable.

How do you know your number while you're there before you get there and buy a local SIM?

Actually the major card companies set deadlines and have all now shifted the liability for swiped transactions onto the retailers. So it's up to them to get their systems updated if they want protection.

The only exception currently is for gas pumps, for which the liability shift has been extended until 2020.