FutureWatch: After 51 Years MasterCard Boots Signatures

Mastercard Inc. is doing away with a rule requiring merchants to get signatures for transactions made with its credit and debit cards in the United States and Canada.

Announced early Thursday, Mastercard’s rule change goes into effect April 13, 2018, allowing issuers, merchants, and processors time to make adjustments, though merchants can adopt the change sooner, Mastercard says. Mastercard also issued a bulletin about the matter Wednesday afternoon. The new rule does not affect interchange, and applies only to point-of-sale transactions.

A majority of consumers believe that it would be easier to pay and that checkout lines would move faster if they didn’t have to sign for purchases, Mastercard says. more

So, why drop a 51 year old signature security requirement?

Mastercard announced that it’s adding fingerprint scanners to its “next generation” cards in order to safely verify the cardholder’s identity whenever they’re making in-store purchases. more