Foreign Perspectives

One of the great things about the introduction of the chip & PIN technology was that it greatly increased security in the sense that you were no longer relying on the shop assistants comparing your signature against that on the back of the card.

If you’d been carrying the card around for a year or two chances are that the signature was barely visible but that rarely mattered anyway given the cursory glance of most shop assistants. Once the novelty value of the photo cards had dwindled it mattered little what photo was on the card although the current rarity of those cards does offer a measure of additional security to those who have them.

However, the problem is that your PIN is required EVERYWHERE. Fair enough when you’re buying something in a shop although it’s a little too easy to watch someone entering their PIN in a lot of locations and there’s a tendency for the person behind you in the queue to get so close that they can easily see your PIN. However, why the need to enter the PIN when you make a deposit in the post office? Not only are post office keypads more visible than most but why the need to identify yourself when making a deposit at all?
After all, the Halifax are able to take machine deposits without a PIN. Why can’t the post office?