Credit/ATM cards would not work in Bruges without "chip" cards

All ATMs will accept magnetic strip cards. Did these rejections happen all in one day? It's possible there was some sort of temporary network issue with your bank. Prior to the start of your trip did you tell your bank you would be traveling to Belgium? If not the bank may have blocked your card as a fraud protection measure.

Did you try at the ING bank on the market square? On two separate occasions, my US ATM card did not work there either. There's an ATM on the Vrijdagmarkt where, conversely, my US ATM card has always worked. To confuse the matter further, my debit card, issued by a European bank, doesn't even always work when I try to use it in stores (always works at an ATM, though).

This is neither new, nor much of a trend. The reasons why a given card works in one place and not another are opaque to me.

Don,

The conversion to "chip & PIN" technology is happening very quickly, but AFAIK your magnetic stripe card should still work, especially in ATM's. What time of day were you trying to access the ATM? The Banks often do data maintenance during the wee hours of the morning so perhaps the system was "down" at the time?

I've heard that "chip & PIN" technology has been implemented more extensively in Holland and Belgium than in some other countries in Europe, but magnetic stripe cards should still work.

I'll add a new wrinkle to Michael's comment. Last month in France I received an email from my bank telling me to call & "verify" some transactions, or my debit card would be blocked. This despite the fact that I had informed them of my travel destinations before I left the U.S. The bank told me they were doing random checks like this "as an extra security measure." It was just lucky that I happened to check my email that day, or my card would have been blocked without my knowing. And there were no bizarre or suspicious transactions on the account.

Forgot to mention that the best bowl of chowder I've ever had was at the Mosquito Fleet Galley in Coupeville, WA.

Here is an interesting article from the New York Times that explains why chip & pin cards may never be adopted in the U.S. and why that may be a good thing. In short, in this country card terminals can connect to the central database fairly easily and cheaply which allows the credit card company to run updated programs to verify accounts and look for fraud.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/business/17digi.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=chip%20and%20pin%20credit%20cards&st=cse

Not sure I would agree because we do seem to have a lot of fraud, but this at least explains why your bank may be in no hurry to adopt this technology.

Did you notify your bank your departure/return date and the countries you would be visiting and using the cards?