AmEx Joins Mastercard and Discover in Dumping Signature Requirement

  • Merchants say new technology makes signing receipts obsolete
  • Mastercard, Discover changed their policies earlier this year
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
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American Express Co. joined Mastercard Inc. and Discover Financial Services in eliminating a signature requirement for purchases made on its network, a move merchants had been pushing for.

AmEx will no longer require customers to sign at checkout for credit- or debit-card purchases beginning in April 2018, the New York-based payments firm said Monday in a statementBloomberg Terminal. The adoption of chip technology and mobile payment options -- which are harder to dupe -- lessened the need for signatures as a fraud-fighting tool, the firm said in the statement.