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Is it the chicken or the egg? Providian Financial Corp. said it completed the nation's first credit card payment via chip technology July 20, albeit in the employee cafeteria of a merchant credit card processor.
At least, the transaction at National Processing Co.'s Louisville, Ky., headquarters may demonstrate the viability of chip-enabled credit cards; at most, San Francisco-based Providian and Visa officials hope, it will lead to mass adoption of so-called "smart cards."
Yet the chicken-or-egg riddle that's bedeviled smart card proponents from the start of the latest smart-card push remains: Will consumers or merchants drive mass acceptance? Yet the conundrum could soon be resolved on both ends.
"What it really does is set the stage,"...