According to this article, one of the reasons credit card companies are going to chip and signature rather than chip and pin is that we lowly card holders just can’t remember a four digit number. Really? We can’t remember the number.
Let’s see — we remember the number for our ATM Card, the number to log in to our smart phone, plus our zip code when we get gas, our debit card code for just about everything, and we can remember the code for our credit card? Right.
If I remember correctly there is a vault-like app for your phone that can hold all your pin codes and if you forget, you can simply look it up. Plus…
Let’s face it. Many of us use the same code, or a derivative of it for most of our pins. Now, this is not the best security, and I don’t recommend it, but we do it. Don’t use your birth date, address, anniversary, or any number than can be human engineered by a thief.
I don’t know how many times a friend has given me his ATM card to get some money for him and the code is 1) written on the back 2) his birth year 3) his anniversary year or 4) the year he graduated from high school. Well, it was silly of him to trust me in the first place, but let’s face it, I’m probably not the person he should be worried about stealing his bank account.
Of course the bank card companies expect that you will have a ‘different’ code for every card and I guess they are concerned about how you will remember. I doubt that will be a problem. Remember in the old days when they assigned you a pin code. Now many of them allow you to select your own. Its the only way we can keep sane.
I have six cards which could require pin codes in my wallet. Some I use very seldom, others I use daily. If I were to have six different codes, well — Maybe that fellow from the credit card company quoted above wasn’t that far off.
When I was in Australia my chip cards worked just fine. I would insert them in the reader and in a few seconds a receipt would shoot out and I would sign it. The card knew it was a chip and signature card and told the terminal to react accordingly. No sweatski.
Chip and pin will come. Depend on it. It will be just a bit further down the line. And we will somehow remember the number.
JVH
