Amex? Useless outside the USA possibly? No one here accepts it in the UK.

BOB

Robert Bracegirdle
2 Farfields Close
GAWSWORTH
Cheshire SK11 9RX

mob: 07711 815903
NO LANDLINE

> On 29 Jul 2022, at 03:06, Matthew Geier matthew@...> wrote:

>

> 

>> On 28/7/22 22:20, Ron Stux wrote:

>> Better specify that this means an Australian bank issued card. Luckily

>> I brought a few AUD with me on my trip because it was a surprise to

>> find I couldn't use my US credit card in the myki machines. No problem

>> purchasing the card with the initial top-up at the store at Southern

>> Cross station with my US credit card. But the first time I tried to

>> top up again - oops.

>

>

> Turns out while there a 'standards' for authenticating credit cards,

> there are too many 'options' and every countries banking system has

> different quirks on these options. I've never travelled to the US, but...

>

> Australian 'chip' cards with PINs are not recognised as such in the UK

> or France and the terminals fall back to 'signature required' often to

> the surprise of the checkout operator. This mean that while we could use

> a Visa Debit card to purchase train tickets in France, we had to go to a

> window, the vending machines couldn't do a PIN verification with our Aus

> cards.

>

> (I have a Visa Debit and a Mastercard Credit (so different providers)

> with free international transactions.)

>

> Most UK machines could fall back to 'online' PIN verification but not

> all. UK chip-n-pin stores the PIN in a encrypted file on the chip that

> the terminals know how to access, so they can do 'offline' verification.

> I think the French do as well, but differently to the British (of course).

>

> My Australian cards worked fine on London's Oyster system.

>

> The rise of Apple and Google payment systems using the NFC chips in

> phones has pushed the state of this a long way towards some sort of

> international harmonisation.

>

> My collection of 'foreign' transit cards will be come collectors items :-)

>

>

> Tourists not having or nor knowing about Myki shouldn't be an issue

> going forward. Any tourist is almost certainly going to have some sort

> of contactless payment card backed by a major banking cartel with

> international affiliates and partners so the system will accept it.

>

> But not quite there yet.

>

> The laggards in all this are actually the US banks.....

>

>

>

>

>

>

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