One compromise that financial institutions have made in the national shift to EMV smart cards from magnetic-stripe cards is that Americans will sign for their purchases instead of entering a 4-digit PIN. Maybe banks think that we’re stupider than the rest of the world, since other countries do use PINs. [More]
first niagara
This HSBC Customer Is Left Out Of The Changeover
By 5.18.12 — Updated: 5.21.14
Last year, HSBC unloaded its credit card division on Capital One, and most of its retail bank branches in the Northeast to upstate New York’s First Niagara Bank. They’ve also been selling off their retail banking operations in other countries. Regular people just aren’t as profitable as we used to be. The thing is, while those branches and all of their customers have been sold, not all of their customers are making the change. George, who lives near a branch but had opened his HSBC accounts online for the sake of convenience, didn’t know this. He’s not associated with a branch, so his account stays with HSBC. He just won’t have a branch to go to. [More]
