It's a PIN, not a PIN number

For months we have been told by the banks about Chip and PIN. Chip and PIN this, chip and PIN that. Use your Chip and PIN. Chip and PIN blah blah until we're fed up hearing about it and over 20 months after its widespread roll-out we still have signs telling us about chip and PIN.

PIN = Personal Identification Number.

A PIN IS A NUMBER THEREFORE DOES NOT NEED THE WORD 'NUMBER' AFTER IT
PIN Number = Personal Identification Number Number. How silly is that?

Yet there's a large number of organisations that really ought to know better who think it is now necessary to suffix the acronym PIN with the superfluous suffix 'number'. Maybe we could just change it to PI number instead?

Please enter your PI ?!

Here are the organisations so far that ought to know better:


1. The Royal Bank of Scotland. On their cashline machines, it states "Please enter your PIN number". Also applies to their Ulster Bank cashline machines in Northern Ireland.

2. Orange. No surprises here, fresh from winning the "worst contact centre award" when you call to collect your voicemail, the greeting states "Please enter your PIN number".

Please feel free to add your own examples...