yeah, if the card is an EMV chip card, and might also have a SVA so everything is handled between the terminal and card, it can be blazingly fast.

In EU they use of offline PIN was used massively before PSD2 and contactless, that made the terminal request during the time it took for validating the transaction online, and basically as soon as the PIN was ok'ed by the card that confirmed the transaction. That gave a perception of speed.

Now it's basically online PIN mostly or contactless, but that means you perceive a "wait for an ok", that you had before but was masked by the PIN capture and check on device/card.

So we went a bit backwards for cards, but wallets like ApplePay went a bit forward. You win some you lose some I guess