The UK also does "chip and pin" authentication for requests, so the waitstaff are forced to either bring a portable cardreader to you or for you to walk to a terminal and enter a code. I think this is why mobile card readers are so common.

In the US, most credit card transactions are simply "(swipe or chip)". If you have the card, you can use it. Gas stations seem to be the slight exception in America -- they generally require "(swipe or chip) and billing zipcode". This is quite funky and not at all secure against fraud.

In the US a few months ago, a food truck used one of those carbon copy card swiper things. And yesterday I tried to pay for a cabin reservation and the lady took it down over the phone and said she'd run it next week. Many grocery stores and gas stations still swipe. Our tax people still use faxes and our hospitals manually create and deliver CD-ROMs for medical imaging. We're not a very advanced country, lol.

In UK. Even the stalls at the school fair take cards now.

I've even seen buskers in London with a machine set up so you can tap your card to tip.

Edit: apparently this was a thing even back in 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/27/busking-joins-...

I remember seeing panhandlers with a mobile card swiper as early as 2009.

swipe is all but gone in the us. Will still say swipe, but that isn't what happens.

Bringing a reader to the table is gare though, mostly a thing at the large chains that are pretend to have ethnic food, but it is really poor quality-

I wish swipe/on card numbers were completely gone here and chip only too. I use my phone for most purchases, but most restaurants here haven't caught up on wireless pay.