American Express Eliminates Signature Requirement

ETA member and global card network American Express announced that it was dropping signature requirements for American Express-accepting merchants worldwide starting in April 2018.

The move, American Express says, will provide a more consistent and simplified checkout experience for merchants and card holders around the globe.

“The payments landscape has evolved to the point where we can now eliminate this pain point for our merchants,” said Jaromir Divilek, Executive Vice President, Global Network Business, American Express. “Our fraud capabilities have advanced so that signatures are no longer necessary to fight fraud. In addition, the majority of American Express transactions today already do not require a signature at the point of sale as a result of previous policy changes we made to help our merchants.”

The move away from the traditional signature requirement at the point-of-sale comes as other card networks make similar announcements. Last week, ETA member Discover Global Network announced it was dropping signature requirements for merchants in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. In October, Mastercard announced that the signature requirement was going away starting April 2018 for merchants in Canada and the U.S. American Express is the first card network to eliminate the requirement globally, the firm said in its release.

Read the full release here.