In the Netherlands we have a system called chipknip, that is a sort of prepaid chip on youre ATM card that you can load up with money and use for vendor machines also.
Thirteen years after its introduction and it isnt a hit or widely adopted, people use it almost exclusively for parking meters and nothing else, mostly bc parking meters in the cities dont accept change.
For vendor machines, lose change is still the easiest option because it doesnt require you load money and everyone always has some change for a soda in their pockets.
And if youre wallet gets stolen except for the paper money and change thats in youre wallet you also lose the amount loaded on youre ATM card.
Edited, Oct 31st 2007 12:24pm by Sjans