I don't think I've ever seen a US chip reader take 5 seconds. 10-20 seconds seems to be the norm (at least for businesses that have always-on internet connections). Google Pay for me definitely takes under 5 seconds, unless the reader is particular about where I hold my phone, and I don't get it right on the first try.

Costco chip read takes 1 or 2 seconds.

Their POS software was obviously written by competent people who care about what they're doing. Not by clowns laid off by Barnum & Bailey.

Edit: I did a few minutes of reflection about this, since it's an astonishing claim compared to standard practices. But what's probably happening has to do with membership. A checkout begins with the POS system scanning a membership card. So the system already knows exactly who they are dealing with. Then the chip read can probably do less in terms of the transaction; perhaps the transaction is automatically approved once an initial chip read verifies that the card is present.

Just to be clear, this is using a standard Visa EMV credit card, not a Costco affiliated card.

While I agree with you it's definitely an exaggeration, part of the UX that's a bit of a pain for the purchaser is when the terminal is locked up until the cashier confirms the purchase. Either you're forced to leave your card in or you can't put your card in until they're ready.

I really think some messaging to change it from "Please Wait" to "Waiting for cashier" would help the real non-tech-savvy people. My parents almost always have issues with the chip because of this. They'll pull out the card at the wrong time and such.

I think some of this is dependent on the hardware used? At least for Apple/Google Pay, I've noticed that for some merchants (Safeway), I can "pay" at any point while the cashier is still scanning times, while for others (Trader Joe's), I have to wait until the cashier is done and moves the transaction into the payment phase.

On the other hand, I don't recall a merchant where I could physically insert my card whenever I wanted, so the A/G Pay option is better in many/most places, even if there are some where you have to wait.

Oh yeah, it depends on the hardware and also how they're configured

I think some of the US POS systems still use dial-up to talk to banks, so O(minutes) is not uncommon.

(For example, the Clipper card machine...)

Depends some readers still use POTS and would have to make a call.

About 20 yeas ago before wide spread use on the internet in the UK they where looking at using the ISDN D channel to do card authentication

My anecdotal experience in the super market is people have about a 15% error rate in removing the card too early, and have to start the entire process over again.

> at most 5 seconds

Not where I live.