Masina posted:
Passbook is still safer. You are forced to sign a paper in order to get any money out. The passbook does not reveal how you sign. So picking up a pass book would mean nothing because the clerk will instantly reject your request because the bank itself holds the correct signing sample.
Credit Card numbers can be stolen, especially nowadays where everything is now electronic. If someone pick up your credit card, the least they can do is to have a super luxury meal since your card has the signing, so as soon as you managed to forge, you can start using it. And i am sure criminals would learnt how t forge within 10 minutes of picking up your card.
In Japan, credit cards aren't used much .Most of the time, they pay in cash. Most konbinis don't even have a credit card terminal. It's a cultural thing. So people may happen to have wads of cash on them. Not very secure. Thankfully, Japan has a low crime rate.
And credit cards aren't insecure. I don't know about the US, but in Europe, a signature is utterly useless in regard to a credit card. None ever uses the signature. You have to have at least the pin code. And even then, there's usually a very low limit of what amount of money you can withdraw or pay if you happen to have both the card and the pin.
Nowadays, credits cards, at least in Europe, have Multi Factor Authentication. For every transaction on internet (so without the pin) you have to validate something on your phone, with your fingerprint as proof.
If in the US a signature is enough, it's really backward. Get on with the times.