It can even be considered a national security issue in the case of food, medicines and other vital services.
Card imprinters did exist in Europe (Italy) just fine, but they are not used since (at least) thirty years.
Most cards that are presented to the cash now have no embossed numbers (most people have the national payment circuit called Bancomat/Pagobancomat, sometimes coupled - on the same not-embossed card - with a Visa or Mastercard debit).
So in 99% of cases there is no way to "extract" money from cards without using the card reader and if electricity or landline/internet connection are down, it is a problem, though there are a number of battery powered and GSM/cellular connected POS/terminals that may give a few hours of autonomy.
Since several years sales to the public MUST be recorded on an electronic cash register[1], there is something like a "special emergency exception" where you can annotate manually on a paper registry sales, but as often happens the exact procedure is not largely known and I believe most people would not risk a (hefty) fine should they do any mistake in these cases and prefer to close the shop.
[1] which is BTW connected via internet to the Agenzia delle Entrate, the governement agency that deals with taxes, and data from the cash register is transmitted daily to them automatically, though there is a few days time tolerance in case of connection issues
Originally they were the main means of taking card payments in the UK, though.
The card has the customer's IBAN, which you can use along with their ID and have them sign a contract to allow you to deduct the purchase via direct debit, the system is routinely used for point of sale, but is mostly known for regular recurring billing.
It's too much of a hassle and deviation from standard business practices for shops to use it in practice, so they just wait until the network is up.
But it's not because there's "no way", embossed cards were a hassle too. We've just gotten used to less manual paperwork.
No, not really, most cards have an "own" number, not connected to the IBAN (though a few do have it), it depends on the bank or organization issuing the card and on the specific type of card, I would say (without any proof of it) that the ratio is maybe 80% without IBAN and 20% with IBAN.
And pre-paid cards are also very common, without a connection you have no way to know if the money is there.
The most resilient back up (especially in the face of national crises) is cash of course, but a growing group of people have stopped carrying any cash at all, and a lot of people in power are doing their best to make sure a cashless future is nearer each day. I don't mind paying with a debit card; I just want to have a backup in place in an increasingly interconnected world where a glitch can take out any nationwide system.
I'm concerned about the phasing out of cash too as a separate issue, I just don't think the cashless options should have to be subject to artificial limitations like requiring electricity or a network connection to be able to be used. I guess online transactions with chip and pin are much more secure and should be the default, but retailers could keep a log of outages that they are required to submit along with the imprinted slips. They could be corroborated with the logs of the utility companies as well as other businesses in the area, and if something doesn't make sense it could trigger an audit.
But of course the imprinting system is ancient and extremely prone to fraud. As is the magstripe. I wish we had a choice not to have the latter anymore. I'd gladly give up the ability to pay in places where magstripes are still used in return for more security against skimming. Here in Europe the magstripe is just not used anymore except for supporting foreign cards.
Imprinters don't exist in Europe to my knowledge - the first time I saw one was on a visit to NYC a few years ago and I thought they were pranking me.
Almost....
Its been a while since I have been involved in POS payments, but IIRC there is a clear protocol which goes something like this:
1. If the card machine is online and working, use that
2. If the card machine is not working *AND* the business is willing to take on the risk, record an offline transaction for later reconciliation
3. If the card machine is not working *AND* the business *IS NOT* willing to take on the risk, call bank $phone_number for manual transaction validation and record the validation code provided at the end of the call.The usual fraud risks don't really apply in this case. Other than that, it must be over 20 years since I saw my parents pay using one, and that was unusual enough that I remember it.
However, that was probably 20+ years ago. :)
We had one at work as well 15 years ago as part of a contingency strategy in case of a power outage, but don't remember it ever being used. I left retail so no idea if they still have it.