With my apple device, I touch the terminal, and its basically instant.
In other words, the bandwidth sticking my card INTO the device (plus whatever time it takes to do some calcs on device) is something like 2,000 times slower over a wired connection then my iphone does over wireless.
There is some failure in the current CVM implementation in the US because this makes no logical sense at all.
About half the chip terminals have to put big stickers on about LEAVING card inserted until told to remove. We've gone backwards from mag stripe here which despite being supposedly inferior was definitely a lot faster.
This depends on the terminal and the EMV kernel. The fastest possible signature transaction is about 1-2 seconds, including powering up the card. Some implementations are just not particularly optimized. Some will perform 'full EMV' transactions which require two round trips from the card to the issuer and may actually run scripts sent by the issuer on your card before you can remove it.
A properly optimized solution in the US will use 'quick EMV' where the card is only required to be in the reader until just after the authorization request cryptogram is generated - before its even sent up to the payment network. [1, p.9]
> With my apple device, I touch the terminal, and its basically instant.
Indeed! Contactless transactions are modeled basically like quick EMV transactions and the whole system was brought in because contact PIN EMV was too slow.
> In other words, the bandwidth sticking my card INTO the device (plus whatever time it takes to do some calcs on device) is something like 2,000 times slower over a wired connection then my iphone does over wireless.
It does take a couple hundred ms for a smart card to boot up. Like-for-like you'd have to compare enabling Apple Pay or Google Pay and entering your PIN or capturing your face.
> There is some failure in the current CVM implementation in the US because this makes no logical sense at all.
Hope the above helped clarify!
> About half the chip terminals have to put big stickers on about LEAVING card inserted until told to remove. We've gone backwards from mag stripe here which despite being supposedly inferior was definitely a lot faster.
Yeah, I do agree - but that's also why the US was the last to the party! Low fraud rate, and large transaction duration costs.
[1] https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/regional/na/us/run-you...
Can speak to this. Historically the US has been reluctant to adopt CVM PIN because of the extra transaction time. A CVM Signature transaction (or even a CVM None) takes 1-2 seconds. Asking someone to enter their PIN takes an additional 10-20 seconds. A full order of magnitude longer.
For places like McDonalds, this was a non-starter. It's even fairly painful in the countries where it has been adopted.
The solution in both markets was to move to contactless EMV cards and especially to contactless-enabled mobile wallets. You get the best of both worlds with mobile wallets: low transaction times and low fraud risk.
The interchange rate you're referencing (2.x%) isn't due to fraud risk really, it's used to fund the cost of reward programs. The EU just doesn't have nearly the same kinds of cash-back or frequent flyer program type cards - which just cannot be funded by the regulated 0.3% interchange cap.