Comment Re:Moral (Score 1) 124
UK perspective here:
Cards in the UK (both credit and debit*) used to be processed in much the same way americans describe their credit card processing now. You handed your card to the retailer who swiped it (in shops this would happen in your presense but I belive in places like restarants they would often take it away and swipe it) and gave you a reciept for to sign.
Then chip and pin came in and retailers were strongly encouraged** to switch. The need to get the customer to type the pin meant that portable card terminals became common and cards were generally no longer taken out of customers sight. In the early days of chip and pin it was common to hand your card to the retailer who would run it down a combined swipe/chip reader. That seems to have fallen out of use now with the normal method being for the customer to insert their card in a smartcard only slot on the pin pad (there is also typically a swipecard slot on the pin pad but it's seperate from the smarcard slot and rarely used for payment***).
More recently contactless NFC cards have come in for small payments. I haven't used one yet though.
You do still occasionally come across a retailer who hasn't caught up with the times though and still does things the old fassioned way with the assistant swiping the card in a reader behind the counter. My most recent such experiance was at scan computers. Imprint machines also still exist though I belive they are generally only used during power cuts and I don't think i've ever had my card processed on one.
* The dichtomy between credit card transaction methods and debit card transaction methods that americans describe did not happen here. Credit and debit cards were and are used in the same ways on the same terminals. We do have "electronic only" debit cards that are given to children and people with terrible credit history but they are the exception not the rule.
** AIUI the card companies would accept the risk (or try and push it onto consumers by claiming that chip and pin made fraud impossible) for fraudulent chip and pin transactions whereas for fraudulent swipe and sign transactions they put the risk on the retailer.
*** Some retailers use the swipecard slot for loyalty cards, it can also be used for credit/debit cards but retailers are increasingly reluctant to do that because of the fraud risk. I imagine it sucks to be in the UK with a foriegn issued non-chip card.