Happy St PINtrick's Day

16-03-2007

by Emmet Ryan

St Patrick has been credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland, and from Saturday he can sign off on another achievement.

From the national day of 17 March, sign and swipe credit card payments for holders of Chip and PIN cards will no longer be permitted.

"The only thing that is changing is that the cardholder needs to know their PIN number," said Una Dillon, head of card services at the Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO).

Dillon said that even though the changes will officially be enacted at the weekend, they won't be implemented until after the bank holiday. "From Tuesday if they don't know their PINs the banks might decline transactions," she said.

The changes do not apply to users of credit cards that are not Chip and PIN enabled.

There are approximately 4 million credits card in circulation in Ireland with around 4 percent not suited to Chip and PIN usage. Credit card users visiting Ireland from countries without Chip and PIN will also be unaffected by the change.

The system was introduced by credit card companies in 2004 in an attempt to battle acts of fraud such as the use of stolen credit cards and counterfeiting cards. "Now if a [Chip and PIN enabled] card is stolen the transaction won't go through unless [the thief] knows the PIN," said Dillon.

The problems associated with sign and swipe cards were humourously taken advantage of in a McDonald's advertisement in the 1990s featuring footballer Alan Shearer. In the TV ad Shearer pays for his meal by credit card but the young man serving him uses the opportunity to wrangle an autograph out of the former Newcastle and England striker. He asks Shearer for a second sample of his signature ostensibly to confirm that the signature on his receipt matches the one on his credit card.

Since the introduction of Chip and PIN the losses resulting from credit card fraud have dropped considerably. IPSO estimates that the EUR12.5 million lost as a result of card fraud in 2005 is 24 percent lower than what it would have been without Chip and PIN. Dillon said she expects this pattern to continue into the future.