The top credit card companies made a huge announcement sometime back that users will not need to sign when checking out in the U.S stores. The announcement was to take effect from April 2018. These credit card companies include Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.
When these changes go into effect
MasterCard was the first to announce that the electronic signature will be no longer be effective. American Express and Discover followed weeks after MasterCard made their announcement. The last one was Visa which officially ditched the signature changes in April.
Companies against the change
Even though several companies are against the change that Credit Card Companies Will No Longer Require a Signature, they will still accept the payments made using the credit cards. The major stores and chains are in a dilemma on whether to continue accepting the cards or not. Some of the large stores and chains such as Target and Walmart have plans to remove the cards from their systems. For the smaller chains and stores who use the cards, the changes come with a lot of challenges to them as they will require replacing their payment system at short notice.
When traveling
When traveling, you should take note of the locations where the signature changes have taken effect. For instance with American Express, the signatures have been eliminated in all parts of the world. Visa has eliminated the signatures only in North America while Discover has eliminated the signature in the U.S, Caribbean, Mexico, and Canada. For MasterCard, the signature changes are effective in the US and Canada.
The announcement
The announcement, Credit Card Companies Will No Longer Require a Signature, was brought by some factors. They include;
1) Advancement in technologies such as pin-and-chip.
2) Payments such as Apple Pay which is contactless have contributed to the change.
3) Most of the companies nowadays have installed high-tech security features to prevent fraud.
Discover has the most advanced security measures better than the personal signature which includes biometrics, use of tokens and multi-factor authentication.
