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Wait, what? South African here. We barely have broadband internet, yet we have chip-based credit cards.
by timkeller 12y ago
Wait, what?
South African here. We barely have broadband internet, yet we have chip-based credit cards.
- rubiquity 12y agoMost chip-and-PIN card readers run on GPRS, at least at restaurants anyway.
- nraynaud 12y agoyou don't even require a connection, you can do an offline transaction, and it's still safer than a magnetic stripe, because duplicating a chip quickly is very hard. Calling the bank to get an authorization is just an optional step in the process.
- DavidJRobertson 12y agoTechnically it's possible for some cards to mandate online authorization (ie 'phoning' the bank).
- nraynaud 12y agooh, yeah true, Visa Electron and friends.
- chc 12y agoYou also didn't have a decades-old existing infrastructure the size of that in the US.