Our banks at work:
These governments like the [chip-and-PIN credit cards] because they reduce fraud. With an embedded microcontroller, large amounts of data can be stored on the card itself rather than in a central database, and counterfeiting such a card is difficult.
But the United States banking industry has no immediate plans to adopt the technology. Part of the reason, experts say, is that fraud issues haven’t been as prevalent here as in other countries.
Here is a case where a superior, more secure model for credit card transactions has not only been designed, but has actually been deployed in 22 countries worldwide (and is in fact causing problems for Americans when traveling abroad in those countries) and will pick up another 50 in the coming years.
Yet American banks refuse to modernize their system to make it compatible because they simply don’t have to yet. They’re waiting for their hands to be forced before shelling out the costs of upgrading.
In other words, they’re waiting for a catastrophic failure of identity security before enacting any measures — especially measures that have become global standards — necessary to prevent it.
