Credit card code? What code?

The cashier at the Danish National Railway station in Copenhagen hand- ed me an alphanumeric keypad and looked at me expectantly. I looked at the keypad, looked at her and tried to figure out what I needed to do. I wanted to pay for three tickets with my Visa card. Simple transaction, breathtaking price ($110).

What code?

"There is no code," I said. "It's a credit card."

"You have to have a code," she said. "It's standard with European credit cards. No code, no tickets. Do you have a card with a code?"

Luckily, I did. It was a debit card on a U.S. checking account that I was able to use for the tickets.

But the glitch typified the trouble I encountered all over the Nordic countries: I couldn't use my credit card at any automatic pay-point, such as gas pumps. We had to search instead for staffed pay points, where cashiers also wanted a scannable picture ID when we signed for purchases.

If you don't have a credit card with an embedded ID chip and accompanying PIN, you may be limited in the number of transactions you can make.

Here's the catch: Americans cannot get such a card through U.S. card issuers.

The term is "chip and PIN" (or EMV, for Europay, Mastercard and Visa). Most European banks and merchants are switching to it. Canada's switching too. By 2010, you'll have trouble using a standard American credit card at many Canadian merchants.

Banking officials say the chip-and-PIN method has reduced credit-card fraud substantially in Europe, where the problem grew exponentially when former Soviet bloc countries joined the European Union.

If your card requires a code, the reasoning goes, it's useless to a thief. No stays at a fabulous luxury suite or a night on the town or a pair of Gucci shoes, courtesy of you or your card -- unless you have the code.

But there are no plans for this in the U.S. When I asked my bank how I could get such a card, I worked my way up the informational ladder to an assistant vice president before finding someone who knew what I was talking about.

Even the best-informed consumers don't always know about the issue. "I had the same problem in London last fall, and I ought to know about these things," said Don Rhodes, director of risk management policy at the American Bankers Assn. "The technology's been on the radar for U.S. banks, but it would be costly to switch."