In the UK, many banks disable the magnetic strip by default, and you have to temporarily enable it from the bank's app/website if you want to use it.
replyYou'd struggle to find a POS terminal that even has a reader for them in the UK. I've only ever had to enable them in the US or Japan.
The US first got magnetic strip readers in 1970 so we just have a ton of infrastructure using them. Since most people drive pickpocketing and things of that nature are much less of an issue for us. Typical use has someone using the card for everything then paying it off at the end of the month so if there's a random extra charge the credit card company will typically let it go to maintain the active user.
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