American Express will stop requiring signatures for purchases
As of April 2018, credit card signature requirements will end globally.
Mastercard and Discover both announced in recent months that, starting next year, they would no longer require signatures for credit card transactions. Now, the Verge reports, American Express has announced it's also moving away from signatures. As of April 2018, American Express signature requirements will be no more and the company says it's because technology advances have made them obsolete. "Our fraud capabilities have advanced so that signatures are no longer necessary to fight fraud," American Express Executive VP Jaromir Divilek said in a statement.
Mastercard and Discover both pointed to similar reasoning and they'll also be discontinuing signature requirements in April of next year. However, while Discover is eliminating signature requirements in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean and Mastercard is ending them in the US and Canada, American Express is ceasing signature requirements globally.
However, though these companies will no long require merchants to collect signatures, those merchants may still choose to do so, and they'll have to if it's required by law in any region. But fewer and fewer transactions require signatures anyway, so for the diminishing number of purchases that still demand them, this move could make checkout times just a tad bit quicker.
