EMV and Singapore Slings

I also had my magstripe zapped and since then I cannot withdraw cash from ATMs in Thailand and Sweden, although the chip is working fine for payments and cashback in stores. I'm not sure, but I believe these ATMs do use the chip, but only after verifying that the magstripe is ok. D'oh!

I dare say your mobile coverage was fine though? One certainly can't accuse the Singaporeans of being retarded when it comes to embracing the 21st century technology.  Perhaps EMV is not considered a good investment in the fututre. Smart those Singaporeans, but too smart for 'smart' cards eh?

Looking forward to a future without anything marketed as 'smart', and without cards, PINS, passwords, usernames, id theft, the list goes on. But not cards. Hey that would be really smart wouldn't it?

Hi Adam,

You are definitely right, they do check the Mag Stripe before using the PIN in ATMs. Same "smart idea" with the merchants.

At the beginning I thought it was a trick from my friend to force me to pay for the restaurant during our whole stay, but even with my card which is both Chip & Mag Stripe OK, they do swipe before inserting it, there is a check of the Mag Stripe before being able to read the Chip.

Just goes to show that one shouldn't believe all what is released in press : April 19 2005, "Banks in Asia Pacific are migrating their ATM and POS networks in order to be compliant with the Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) global chip card standard ahead of the January 2006 deadline. While EMV migration across Asia Pacific is at various stages, fraud prevention is a common and primary driver for all countries to meet the industry standard, which will enhance card security."

Most ATMs need the magnetic stripe to open the shutter and to indicate the presence of the chip. Once the ATM gets the card inside, if the magnetic stripe indicates a chip, the ATM uses the chip.

The need to read the magnetic stripe is in case the chip cannot be read and the transaction may go to "fallback" mode and use the magnetic stripe information.  Does make one wonder why have the chip in the first place as a chip is easy to "disable".

EMV-compliant ATMs in Europe will accept and process an EMV card even if its mag-stripe is non-readable.

The problem here is that a cardholder may not know that his cards' mag-stripes are non-readable, because he is able to use them in EMV countries, then get a bad surprise when he tries to use them in non-EMV countries. 

If what Jonathan said is true "Most ATMs need the magnetic stripe to open the shutter and to indicate the presence of the chip", then this contradicts EMV (chip first, if chip not available or non-working, then fallback to mag-stripe). But I suspect ATMs that need the magnetic stripe to open the shutter, ... - are not EMV-compliant.

EMV does not say the card should not have a magnetic stripe. On the contrary, it supports a gradual transition.

Sensing the magnetic stripe to open the shutter does not mean actually using it for the transaction.

Fallback is up to the banks, and most do not allow it, especially for ATMs.

Chip only cards may be valid nationally, but for international use a valid magnetic stripe is specified and often needed.