London Banter - View Single Post

Neil Williams · February 25th 17, 06:16 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 2017-02-25 18:59:08 +0000, d said:

Gotta love contactless. Chip and pin arrives - there being a damn good reason
for the PIN - then the banks decide they'll get more transactions if they
remove the PIN and pretend its not really needed after all. So why do I
need one if I put the card in the slot but not if I use contactless? What
exactly is the qualitative difference? Answer: there isn't one.

There's a *quantitative* difference, namely the £30 cap, and the fact
that if you do more than N transactions in a row the PIN will be called
for.

Yes, thieves could nick a wallet and go around spending about 5 x £30
(£150) with it before they had issues. But that's not going to, er,
break the bank. And if it did happen, the end customer is not liable.

It's basically making cards more of an effective replacement for cash,
and I encourage that, as cash is a faff (and encourages the black
market etc).

Neil
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Neil Williams
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