Any first-hand information on American "chip and no PIN" cards in the U.K.?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 21 Jul, 2023
- |
If there’s no pin on the card, there’s no pin to enter. Just plug-in & confirm transaction.
I expect, like any other smartcard (the kind of thing the chip is), the system will just skip the pin checking phase. (if there’s a pin it needs to be done to communicate with the card)
However, if you are unable to use the chip for whatever reason, you can not use the magnetic stripe with any machine that has a slot for chip cards. (whether the card has a chip or not is encoded in the magnetic stripe)
I have had a chip-and-no-PIN MasterCard, Visa card and American Express card issued by Malaysian financial institutions for ages and throughout my travels to London, Paris, Rome/Venice, Sydney/Melbourne, Hong Kong, Tokyo/Osaka – none of my transactions have been declined by merchants. What I observed while queuing up to pay was that the locals have to key in their PIN, but I have to sign my signature on the transaction slip.
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I’m from Ireland (which is similar to UK in this regard). Here many many point-of-sale or ATMs will be chip and pin. I overheard some Americans recently in my local supermarket unable to use their swipe credit card.
However I’ve never heard of these chip cards without a pin. Here “Chip ‘n PIN” is what it’s called at. You may have to explain to people about the lack of PIN. I’d be slightly surprised if it were to work without the PIN.
You could always use your card in a bank to get cash and just spend cash there. Or to be on the total safe side, get a proper chip & pin card.
Coming from New Zealand, when I arrived in the UK I had one of the credit cards that I hadn’t gotten around to putting a pin on. But without fail, as long as there was a person there, they’d be happy to let me sign for it – and they’d usually request a form of ID to compare with.
In theory a pin is more secure, but signing is still perfectly valid.
I then got myself a chipped and pinned debit card while living there, so I didn’t end up using my NZ one that often, but when I did, it worked.
I had a bit more trouble in Central Asian countries, but a bit of hand waving and you’d usually get the message across 😉
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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