I should have specified that I live in the east-coast United States. Tap-to-pay is almost as common as someone writing you a paper check or an IOU, out here.
I should have specified that I live in the east-coast United States. Tap-to-pay is almost as common as someone writing you a paper check or an IOU, out here.
Saying east coast is too vague to be useful. I live on the east coast too and there are entire weeks where leave all my credit cards at home and only pay via tap-to-pay.
Contactless is basically non existent in America?
I know America has always been backwards (cheques were still in use well into the 21st century, card pins didn’t seem to catch on before contactless became a thing about a decade ago), but I thought contactless was quite high nowadays, especiallly with phones and watches.
Certainly I’ve had no problem paying contactless in the cities I’ve been to recently - New York, DC and Miami.
Keep in mind that inertia is a thing. Businesses used to have to make an impression on your card on carbon copy paper and physically send the slips in to be processed. When they started swiping cards, restaurants would only have one terminal and it had to be connected to a phone line to work. Both of these situations made it common for you to hand your card to the waiter (usually in the book they brought the check) because they couldn't do it at the table.
Credit cards caught on later in other parts of the world, and they benefited from having more modern options with regards to the equipment used. Governments and banks also did more to mandate the use of security features (chip & pin) than in the US - American banks like people using credit cards - it makes them a lot of money and they're incentivized to keep the barriers low as long as the amount of fraud is manageable to them.
Contactless is pervasive when there's counter service, but most POS systems in the US are still at a fixed staff station, and not one of the portable readers that the waiter can bring to the table. It's super weird, I agree (I was just in Guatemala, for example, and every restaurant had a portable reader they'd bring to the table), but I would imagine replacing POS systems again -- remember, we got chip card readers later than a lot of the rest of the world -- is annoying.
Table-service restaurants always take your card (Not sure if they support chip and/or contactless), but most other services support chip and contactless. (2025, NC). This wasn't true in my experience until a few years ago. We lag Europe by 5+ years on payment techs. E.g. chip, contactless. There's a coffee shop holdout near me that was magstrip only until a few weeks ago.
This was true five years ago, not true now.
When I eat out in NYC now they almost always bring the machine to your table so you can use contactless and you select the tip amount on the screen.
The other week I went to a place that asked for my card and brought out the receipt for me to sign and I had to manually calculate the tip and was struck by how long it's been since I had to do that.
Interesting! That was my experience in Europe even 10 years ago, but they haven't caught up in NC, Vegas, and the other US cities I've been to lately. Interesting hearing the NYC takes in this thread! Both cash, and modern chip/tap readers at restaurants, neither of which I see.
I heard this mess has to due to banks and CC companies (Visa etc) fighting over who implements the changes, while the system in Europe (and Asia, and South America...) doesn't have that division, so they get the tech mainstream fast.
i don't know why you'd think that. I don't live in a major metropolitan area and have used contactless payments for everything for the last 5-6 years.
Vet, grocery store, fedex/ups, pharmacy, restaurants, retail.
Because the op said
“ Tap-to-pay is almost as common as someone writing you a paper check or an IOU, out here.”
I.e rarer than hens teeth.