Re: Like they care
Yes, I was rather lose in my description of the PIN being stored on the card. It's a complicated issue where the PIN is not actually stored, but a hash of the PIN and some information unique to the card is stored, so that the PIN you type in is hashed with the card-specific information, and is then compared with the stored hash to determine whether the PIN was correct. It's a one-way hashing process, so even if the information on the card could be read, the PIN cannot easily be determined.
But the point is that it is completely on the card (as is the cryptographic processor that computes the hash - I'll bet you did not know that your bank card had a processor on-board). This is how the calculator-type authentication devices can work in isolation from any data connection, as all the authentication device is doing is providing the PIN to the card, and initiating the hash/compare.
It should not be the case that the card-issuing authority should know the PIN, because that breaks the personal secret that the bank claims tie a transaction down to you, and as a result absolves them of any responsibility for card-fraud.
In the UK, all bank issued cards, whether credit, debit or charge cards use the same mechanism for chip-and-pin, although it is different from other countries. Your point about the magnetic stripe is interesting, because UK cards do actually still have mag-stripes, so that they can be used abroad.
That does suggest that the card issuer does have to know the PIN.