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Good post. I totally agree with your assertion that "most of us would prefer their money to be stolen rather than our biometric information being in hands of some criminal organisation." That said, I wonder if it isn't too early to concede that biometric info will also get breached.

I know we keep seeing a number of mythical payment innovations but I believe Ripple is for real - even without its "fiction-free" label!!!

I can bet that Scottrade is not the only one. "Ignorance is bliss" until FBI imparts knowledge!

As of now, my bank is acting as my conscience-keeper and telling me how to save trees:  

https://twitter.com/GTM360/status/650936210400145408

I'm sure it'll realize it's my bank and start telling me how to save money. If not within the proverbial "six working days" but at least after a few months!

Warts And All, The System Works

@BalasubramaniamGD: TY for your kind words.

American Retailers can handle every cost as long as they earn revenues, which can happen only in one place, namely, their stores, and in only one manner, namely, by giving a great CX (at least in USA). If retailers not implementing EMV are really funding criminals and terrorists, FBI and DHS will go after them. While vendors have the luxury of saying "should have been", "can be", and so on, retailers face the harsh realities of using solutions as they're delivered today and are fully justified in evaluating ROI of EMV investments. As Panda has done and found that their fraud loss is too small to justify the cost of EMV POS upgrades.

The 20 second processing time is attributed to a Gartner analyst quoted in the NBC article cited in my earlier comment. We can keep debating about whether it's an "exception" or "unusual" or "not uncommon" but the decision of Panda Restaurant Group with 1800 restaurants to eschew EMV altogether because its fraud losses are too small to justify the cost of POS upgrade for accepting chip cards (cf. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/credit-and-debit-cards-lag-on-emv-upgrades) brings us to the heart of the debate: How do regulators / businesses view fraud - or CX or quality or any other basic attribute of running a business?

On the one extreme, there are retailers like Nordstorm and Zappos who hold CX above all. On the other extreme, there are regulators and / or businesses who hold fraud prevention above everything else (cf. The Indian regulator RBI went on record saying, "security first, convenience next"). In between these two extremes lie companies like Panda who consider fraud as another cost of doing business. Nothing right, nothing wrong, we’re where we are.

As Panda's decision illustrates, there's no guarantee that we'll even go all the way ever! Especially because, as I'd highlighted in Mitigating Fraud Does Not Pay The Bills, leading merchants in USA like Amazon have not implemented 2FA for online card payments despite (a) FFIEC issuing guidelines for it way back in 2005, and (b) ROW having done so several years ago.

In my experience, chip card processing time ranges from 10 to 50 seconds. Implementation, network, bandwidth, level of education of how to dip a Chip card, blah blah blah - these are all factors that, along with the basic technology, make up the overall "solution" that is experienced by a retailer and consumer. As long as the solution delivers a bad CX, adoption will suffer - regardless of whether the problem is with the technology or surrounding factors. Especially in USA where, in my experience, businesses care a lot more about delivering a great CX than ones in most of ROW.

Early reports of Chip + Signature in USA point out one more cultural factor that poses a hurdle to this technology in USA: 

"Some people are experiencing a 20 second wait times with these chips," said Avivah Litan, vice president and analyst at Gartner Research. "We're a more rushed society than anyone else. So me, I'm going to be a little mad when I have to wait longer at checkout. You have to wait until the very end to get your card." 

As I'd predicted in my post, some retailers are expecting customers to prefer cash because of the delay in processing chip cards: 

"Litan says retailers who have met the deadline will likely ... create cash-only lines." 

So, ironically, a security measure that is intended to increase security and make people more comfortable about using cards is actually driving them away from cards and towards cash!

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/chips-dips-tips-5-potential-problems-new-credit-cards-n436511

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/chips-dips-tips-5-potential-problems-new-credit-cards-n436511

Early reports of Chip + Signature in USA point out one more cultural factor that poses a hurdle to this technology in USA:

"Some people are experiencing a 20 second wait times with these chips," said Avivah Litan, vice president and analyst at Gartner Research. "We're a more rushed society than anyone else. So me, I'm going to be a little mad when I have to wait longer at checkout. You have to wait until the very end to get your card." 

As I'd predicted in my post, some retailers are expecting customers to prefer cash because of the delay in processing chip cards: 

"Litan says retailers who have met the deadline will likely ... create cash-only lines." 

So, ironically, a security measure that is intended to increase security and make people more comfortable about using cards is actually driving them away from cards and towards cash!