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The End of Credit Card Signatures on Receipts: What it Means for SMB

July 30th, 2018

When it comes to credit card processing, there is always constant change. In April, all the major card brands in the United States, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover all dropped the credit card signature requirement at the register. How many times have you, as a consumer, gotten to the check out and just scribbled your name or drew a picture, or have tried to figure out how your actual signature was going to fit in that teeny pinpad? I think all of us can admit to that. How is that securing the transaction? How is that stopping credit card fraud? Well, it isn’t and that’s why it’s going away. Let’s take a look at how this affects small business.

The final domino fall for the end of credit card signatures was EMV. Since the mandate in October of 2015, according to Visa, fraud for small business merchants that are EMV enabled has dropped by two thirds! Also keep in mind if you are a small business owner, that the end of signatures is only available to merchants who are EMV enabled. So that means if you have not made that shift yet or have a POS system that is not EMV ready, you still must get a signature at check out. There are numerous solutions now for EMV. There is no reason right now not to have an EMV POS solution. So, if you are a SMB and don’t have one yet, get one! It’s more secure, they’ll be less fraud and you won’t have that signature requirement.

One other piece of information to keep in mind with the end of signatures, is that this opens the door for NFC enabled payments to start chipping the way as a major form of payment. NFC payments are Apple Pay or Android Pay, the digital form of payments that you can do from your phone. As a small business you’ll want to jump on this as well! Not only is it a more secure form of payment, but also, the transaction time is quick and the customer doesn’t have to dig around for their credit card anymore. They probably already have their phone out. Now, all they have to do is wave their phone over your EMV ready terminal and that’s it!

Now that the end of credit card signatures is here, make sure you keep ahead of the curve as a SMB and have an EMV/NFC ready terminal. Make your transactions more secure, speed up the check out process and improve your customer experience! This will be a time and money saver in the end for you as a merchant!