Is a credit card with pin needed for London?

[5onadime]

I tried to do a search,but something isn't working right for me.

 

Do we need a credit card with a PIN number in London? Specifically for automated tickets for the tube? Do they take cash? Is there a place to purchase from a person? Looking at Paddington Station. Will need to buy a travel card (1day) and a LondonPass

 

 

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[MATHA531]

Things can change very rapidly these days but for the most part, my experience is that almost universally the antiquated American magnetic strip cards are accepted throughout London even the machines on the tube. For the time being, there will be a booking office in most stations with a clerk (although tfl is talking of substituting a contact type card for the oyster card or paper tickets but it hasn't happened yet). So in the case of London, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[Twickenham]

I tried to do a search,but something isn't working right for me.

 

Do we need a credit card with a PIN number in London? Specifically for automated tickets for the tube? Do they take cash? Is there a place to purchase from a person? Looking at Paddington Station. Will need to buy a travel card (1day) and a LondonPass

 

 

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I've honestly never used a credit card for the tube ticket machines. I do know that Paddington has plenty of ticket agents, so you should be able to use your CC with one of them to buy your travelcard if the machines don't work.

[orchestrapal]

For the last several years chip and pin or chip and sign cards are the norm in London. There are machines that will only take chip and pin cards while we do use chip and sign in the underground to top off our Oyster Cards.

[SteveH2508]

Things can change very rapidly these days but for the most part, my experience is that almost universally the antiquated American magnetic strip cards are accepted throughout London even the machines on the tube. For the time being, there will be a booking office in most stations with a clerk (although tfl is talking of substituting a contact type card for the oyster card or paper tickets but it hasn't happened yet). So in the case of London, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

 

FYI - the Oyster card is a 'contact type' card. There are a few bank debit cards which use this technology which (I believe) can be used as well on TfL. TfL are going to get rid of cash fares on the buses soon. They are also proposing to get rid of manned ticket offices almost completely (hence the recent tube strike). They are now discussing it again.

[DragonOfTheSeas]

Have they discussed how soon they might do this?

[SteveH2508]

Have they discussed how soon they might do this?

 

I believe the loss of cash fares on the buses might be later in 2014. You can already use 'contactless' debit cards on buses and will be able to on tubes from later in 2014. The ticket office changes - who knows if ever?

 

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

[consumermonkey]

Hiya,

 

If I may throw in my penny's worth,

 

Most major tube stations still have manned booths where you can talk to a real person. There are lots of other staff around too who will help. I would imagine as Paddington is a major station, they are more than used to tourists from every part of the world.

 

Chip and pin is as far as I am aware as close to 100% take-up as it is possible to get in the entire UK (and probably most of Western Europe by now too). However, each chip and pin device should have an option to sign too, or in the case of a very large supermarket chain a few years ago, you just swiped the magnetic strip and that was it, no pin, no signature either.

 

From what I read a few weeks ago, most USA banks are in the process of changing over to chip & pin anyway, so a quick call to your bank to get one would not be a bad idea and IMHO makes the whole process of buying things a little quicker.

[MATHA531]

Hiya,

 

If I may throw in my penny's worth,

 

From what I read a few weeks ago, most USA banks are in the process of changing over to chip & pin anyway, so a quick call to your bank to get one would not be a bad idea and IMHO makes the whole process of buying things a little quicker.[/quote]

 

Just one correction. The die seems to have been cast that many if not most of the US banks will be migrating to emv chips. That is true although it is going very slowly. But for a whole slew of unexplainable reasons, the US banks are insisting that Americans want chip and signature not chip and pin cards and the direction they are going is to have chip and signature priority cards (which should be no problem in the UK as when chip and pin requirements were adopted, as a concession to some handicapped groups, it was required that provisions be made for alternate methods of verification and the direction then was to make the terminals chip and signature capable). As a matter of fact, I have read that some pressure is being put forth to mandate no secondary verification other than the emv chip. How far that will get is problematic.

[Pet Nit Noy]

From what I read a few weeks ago, most USA banks are in the process of changing over to chip & pin anyway, so a quick call to your bank to get one would not be a bad idea...

 

I hope what you read turns out to be true! Perhaps the banks actually learned a lesson from their last roll-out of a chip card!

 

Somewhat less than two years ago, our bank wrote to say it would be mailing chip technology credit cards. Since we visit Europe annually, we looked forward to the arrival of our new card. We opened the envelope, looked at the card, and read the documentation. Whoops! The card did have a chip embedded in it, but there was no provision to set a PIN number. The card turned out to be a hybrid version -- a chip and signature.

 

We phoned the bank and worked our way though several departments to see if there was something we were missing. More precisely, we wanted to learn why the bank had spent money changing to a technology that accomplished nothing that the older technology didn't already do. Everyone was singing the same song: "This will work all over Europe." Well, yes if you limit your definition of "all" to mean only those transactions handled by a human being. Without a PIN, a chip and signature card, is not useful at any unmanned gas station, toll booth, or ticket machine.

 

I definitely hope our next card is Chip and Pin, but I'm not holding my breath!

Edited February 20, 2014 by Pet Nit Noy

[consumermonkey]

No worries, I live in UK and the article didn't go into that much detail. I do remember it saying that chip and pin (deffo not chip and Sig) would be aiming to be fully in place by Oct 15 2015. May I ask, how do you get cash out of an atm? Every one I have ever encountered in UK or Europe has required a pin as security for as long as I can remember, which must be getting on for 30 years. Never used an atm in the States. The pin number for atm use is the same as for chip and pin.

 

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[Pet Nit Noy]

... I do remember it saying that chip and pin (deffo not chip and Sig) would be aiming to be fully in place by Oct 15 2015.

 

Well, I'm glad I wasn't planning to hold my breath. By October 15, 2015, I will have made several trips to Europe using my chip and signature card.

 

May I ask, how do you get cash out of an atm? Every one I have ever encountered in UK or Europe has required a pin as security for as long as I can remember, which must be getting on for 30 years. Never used an atm in the States. The pin number for atm use is the same as for chip and pin.

 

I have an ATM card -- with its own PIN -- that is wholly independent from my credit cards. I could get cash using my credit card but that would be a cash advance, something quite different from a cash withdrawal on my cash card.

 

The reason for holding two types of cards is that rates for a cash advance are unfavorable: the interest on the total monthly balance on the charge card plus any foreign transaction fees. The rates for a cash withdrawal are limited to any foreign transaction fees and there are ways to limit/avoid those by choosing certain banks. Perhaps the easiest way to think of the difference is that with a charge card, I'm using the bank's money until I pay it off. With a cash card, I'm always using my own money.

[consumermonkey]

Oh, ok. Yep much different to over here, and a wee bit more complicated too.

 

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[newport dave]

A lot of newly issued chip & pin cards in the UK are now also contactless. So for any transactions less then £20 you just hold your card to the reader for a second and that's it.

[5onadime]

I have to confess. I am still not understanding. Will my old fashioned credit card work in london? Keep it simple for me. Yes or no

 

 

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[MATHA531]

No worries, I live in UK and the article didn't go into that much detail. I do remember it saying that chip and pin (deffo not chip and Sig) would be aiming to be fully in place by Oct 15 2015. May I ask, how do you get cash out of an atm? Every one I have ever encountered in UK or Europe has required a pin as security for as long as I can remember, which must be getting on for 30 years. Never used an atm in the States. The pin number for atm use is the same as for chip and pin.

 

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This is an ongoing discussion matter elsewhere. It does not really have to do with pin or signature. An emv chip is an emv chip read by the new type terminals. It's the final verification which could be online or offline that is at issue. ATM's use online verification by pins. Namely the pin does not reside on the chip but rather is a gatekeeper to the banks computer system. You enter the pin, in an ATM transaction, and before authorizing the withdrwal the pin serves to all you entry into your account at the bank. In the earlier days of chip and pin, the pin (and it still does) resides basically on the chip and the transaction is authorized via the pin on the chip, offline at the time. The distinction has been blurring though recently.

 

Look, 15 October 2015 is an important date in the USA battle over chips on credit cards. On that date, liability will change supposedly for merchants who do not have emv capablity on pos terminals. However, there is no specification that it needs to be chip and pin. For whatever the reason, that many still can't figure out, the American banks seem to prefer as their primary verification chip and signature. All sorts of rationals have been raised some ridiculous like Americans are used to signing for charges and will rebel against pins or Americans tend to carry more credit cards than in most other countries. Literally thousands of banks issue credit cards in the USA. If you have five or six diffefent credit cards, you might have to remeber five or six different pins. The American banks claim their fraud prevention systems are top rate and they can usually pick out fraudulent transactions. Whether you want to buy into this line of thinking is up to you.

 

The die seems to have been cast that the majority of cards being issued by US banks will be sort of hybrid cards i.e. chip and signature at manned pos terminals with the fall back ability to operate as chip and pin in unmanned kiosks. Call it what you will. Of course complicating the matter is whether these cards will give control if a merchant does not want to accept a chip and signature card. Right now, these hybrid cards cannot be made to do a chip and pin signature if the terminal, not the merchant, accepts chip and signature and there have been reports, admitedly few, of merchants refusing to complete a transaction if the card defaults to chip and signature.

 

Let me repeat, the 15 Octover 2015 deadline in the USA is for emv chips only; not as of now requiring chip and pin. There are also claims I have read that future regulations will prohibit merchants from refusing to accept chip and signature cards.

 

It's a complicated world in the USA but then again one must understand the sheer size of the USA payments system dwarfs anything throughout most of the rest of the world. And of course, things do change.

 

Incidentally, as is mentioned elsewhere, sometimes but not all the times a chip and signature card will prompt for a pin and people have reported some success, not universal, in using the ATM pin in an online transaction. But that is not universal.

 

Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, there are only about 3 banks in the USA that issue what would be called a true chip and pin card. USAA, although membership is restricted to people associated with the armed forces, on its mastercard but not its visa card. UNFCU which used to be open only to employees of the UN but now individuals can join this federal credit union by joining some organization involved with US participation in the UN for a $25 membership fee and Diners Club issued by the Bank of Montreal but currently not accepting new accounts from Americans It also carries a stiff $95 annual fee. That's it.

 

Some other US banks issue cards they advertise as chip and pin. For example, three fcu's in the DC area (Andrews for the Air Force base, State Department and Pentagon Fed) bu they're really hybrid cards which default as chip and signature but do have the ability to function as chip and pin at unmanned kiosks and for the most part do. But the emv cards being issued by the large credit card banks in the USA, Bank of America, Chase and Citibank are all chip and signature as well as Amex cards issued in the USA by either Amex or some banks that issue Amex cards. It really is an ungodly mess and confusion is understandable but the banks are very adamant that they want to go with chip and signature and no amount of persuasion, at least up till now, has gotten them to change their minds. The good news is chip and signature cards gnerally work but generally is not universally of course.

Edited February 21, 2014 by MATHA531

[MATHA531]

I have to confess. I am still not understanding. Will my old fashioned credit card work in london? Keep it simple for me. Yes or no

 

 

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The answer, my friend, is an emphatic probably. Almost always at manned pos (point of sale) terminals as almost all have provisions for swiping the archaic American cards. Many of the machines also will take the American magnetic strip cards. For the most part, my experience ha been that the machines in the underground do take magnetic strip cards while the machines at main line train stations do not. After all, London is very used to American tourists eager to spend their hard earned dollars on overpriced goods in London. So don't sweat it if you can't get a card with an emv chip and also be prepared that many banks will offer an emv chipped card which is chip and signature (like the Bank of America or Chase or Citibank) and they do work for the most part.

[Pet Nit Noy]

I have to confess. I am still not understanding. Will my old fashioned credit card work in london? Keep it simple for me. Yes or no

 

Yes and no.

 

Yes at places where a human handles your transaction.

 

No at places where purchases are automated, most typically at toll booths and gas stations.

 

Bottom line: If you aren't renting a car, filling it with gas, and paying tolls you'll probably be fine with your swipe card in London. If you'll be riding the Underground, I recommend that you buy your Oyster card (or point to point or day passes) during the work day when people are likely manning the ticket booths at the stations.

[sparkieplug24]

I have to confess. I am still not understanding. Will my old fashioned credit card work in london? Keep it simple for me. Yes or no

 

 

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yes if your credit card is not chip and pin enabled then you can sign for purchases as you would normally do. However you would need to use manned cash desk in shops, subway stations etc as someone has to verify the signature.

[Scriv]

Read in the paper this weekend that cash will not be accepted on the buses from mid-summer. No date given.

[orchestrapal]

I have to confess. I am still not understanding. Will my old fashioned credit card work in london? Keep it simple for me. Yes or no

 

 

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If it does not have a chip the answer is no in most places.

Check with your CC company.

[newport dave]

If it does not have a chip the answer is no in most places.

Check with your CC company.

 

The above answer is wrong. Your card will still work at all shops and attractions. All tills and credit card readers still have the ability to swipe an old fashioned signature card. The only places you'll have trouble is at unmanned ticket booths,petrol stations etc. where you need to enter a 4 digit pin.

[MATHA531]

If it does not have a chip the answer is no in most places.

Check with your CC company.

 

Absolutely untrue at least as far as London is concerned. Off the usual beaten track in the UK and in some places in Europe, there might be some areas of resistance to the antiquated American cards. However, most places in London are used to dealing with American tourists and their magnetic strip cards. You might come across an odd place or two where there might be resistance but at least for now, it's not a big problem.