Discover Eliminates Signatures Requirement at Checkout

Starting April 2018, Discover will eliminate the requirement of signatures from the purchasing cardholder for credit and debit transactions on the Discover Global Network in the US, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Discover cites the change as part of their efforts to decrease the time at the checkout and increase security for payment methods for both customers and merchants. As part of Discover’s mandate to create a seamless and safe transaction, they have already implemented many digital authentication technologies like tokenization, multi-factor authentication, and biometrics.

“With the rise in new payment security capabilities, like chip technology and tokenization, the time is right to remove this step from the checkout experience,” said Jasma Ghai, Vice President of Global Products Innovation at Discover.

With the end of signatures as the major way to authenticate purchases, Discover has implemented safety and security through: chip technology in cards which helps prevent cloning by validating per transaction; a digital exchange that manages payment credentials on mobile and digital devices using tokenization; the monitoring of “risky” sites for activated card members, immediate freezing of accounts; continual monitoring of every Discover card purchase 24/7; and $0 fraud liability on unauthorized purchases.

As one of the largest card issuers in the United States, this signals a significant change in the nature of credit and debit transactions. Some merchants may have to upgrade their POS systems to implement the no signature transaction from Discover Global Network.

December 6, 2017 – by Susan Stover