Starting in April, anybody who uses an American Express (NYSE:AXP) credit card will no longer need to provide their signature when purchasing something.
Amex is hoping to create a faster checkout experience for its customers, and the hope is that this change will be what achieves this.
“The payments landscape has evolved to the point where we can now eliminate this pain point for our merchants,” explained Jaromir Divilek, Executive Vice President of Amex, of the signature elimination. “Our fraud capabilities have advanced so that signatures are no longer necessary to fight fraud.”
“Having to sign a receipt can be a hassle for customers, and is not necessary to prevent fraud at the point of sale,” further explained Mike Cook, Assistant Vice President of Walmart. He believes the change American Express is making “will promote a more seamless shopping and checkout experience” for customers.
The requirement of a signature is more a burden to merchants than it is to customers. “For a merchant like Walmart,” said Cherian Abraham, an Experian Digital Payment Executive. “Every additional second at the point of sale translates into several million in terms of costs.”
While most credit cards don’t require a signature from the user anymore (in its place is the chip technology that has been inserted into credit cards to help in preventing fraud), American Express is actually the first card provider to enlist this change across the globe.
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