While with a credit card, you do still have money in the bank and less instances where you are assumed to be the liable person.
Also culturally in the USA it's a common feeling that debit is not as good or the consequences are more dire with debit cards and fraud.
Bank balances are very important for most Americans to avoid late fees and so on to pay their bills, while you can hypothetically walk away from a credit card debt.
Card companies decided that the friction & support burden that PIN entry gives is not worth the revenue decrease vs. the cost of fraud AFAIK.
IMO I want push permissioned payments and not have this basically auth-free pull system of payments, but that wont happen for a long time. Subscriptions should be a subscription request send to a card, you approve in your bank app and then you can cancel unilaterally on your side on you app. None of this pull crap. Same with tap to pay.
In many circumstances, banks are required to either resolve the issue quickly or provisionally credit you in case of disputes. Fraud liability is also limited by regulation, in addition to card scheme rules and bank policies:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/what-is-regulation-e/
> Also culturally in the USA it's a common feeling that debit is not as good or the consequences are more dire with debit cards and fraud.
I suspect that it's primarily that: Common knowledge with a lot of truth to it, but not entirely up to date and correct in many instances. Germany obviously has a lot of that as well, but with very different axioms leaving to very different outcomes in terms of guidance and behavior ("only cash is real money", "debt is bad/a moral failure" etc.)
> Card companies decided that the friction & support burden that PIN entry gives is not worth the revenue decrease vs. the cost of fraud AFAIK.
The problem is that due to market dynamics (leaving aside card scheme rules for the moment), it's really not up to individual banks to change that. The first bank to introduce a PIN on their credit card would lose a lot of purchases to their competitors due to convenience, forgotten PINs etc.
In Europe, it took heavy regulation to get banks to use 3DS – the dynamics there in terms of a first-mover disadvantage were very similar, and the existing (significant!) financial incentives were not enough.
> IMO I want push permissioned payments and not have this basically auth-free pull system of payments, but that wont happen for a long time. Subscriptions should be a subscription request send to a card, you approve in your bank app and then you can cancel unilaterally on your side on you app. None of this pull crap. Same with tap to pay.
The various stakeholders (card schemes, regulators, banks) are well aware of that customer demand. This industry is one full of legacy technology, and it'll take a while, but I think we'll get there eventually.
I really wish US credit cards would finally switch to PIN as well. We all end up paying for lost/stolen card fraud indirectly, and PINs are extremely effective at preventing that.
The downside would be if banks would use that as an opportunity to shift the liability for all remaining fraud onto cardholders as well, but the same scenario already exists with ATMs and debit cards.
> Also less fraud protection
Practically, not really. Most banks go above and beyond the legal requirements for limiting fraud liability for unauthorized debit charges and offer zero liability as well. The same chargeback framework that exists for debit also applies to most credit transactions.