Mastercard to (Finally) Kill Signatures

Mastercard has had enough of waiting for the signature to die on its own.

That’s why the global payments company is eliminating the need for a signature at the point-of-sale, starting today.

The step should help eliminate some of the consumer friction at retail checkout, where customers have to deal with chip problems, swipe problems and PIN problems all before they get to the (useless) signature.

As chip technology becomes more accepted, and as companies keep experimenting with alternative authentication technology like biometric identification, the signature has become less and less useful as an identifier for merchants, and more and more of a nuisance for consumers.

Mastercard has already made decent strides in removing that last layer of friction — about 80% of Mastercard transactions in North America do not currently require a signature by the card user, Linda Kirkpatrick, executive vice president for Mastercard, told PYMNTs.

Taking out the need for merchants to ask for a signature the remaining 20% of a time means that the practice should be all but eliminated for Mastercard users.

Read more at PYMNTs and Mastercard.