Finally, an End to The Insecurity of the Signature.

How many times have you had your signature checked by someone at the store? If you visited my store back when I was working at Dick Smith I can guarantee that I’d check it every single time, regardless of how big or small your purchase was. However, as a customer, I can count the number of times that someone has checked my signature on my right hand. This is probably a good thing for me as the years of keyboard warrior-ing has turned my hand writing into something that’s barely indistinguishable from random chicken scratchings, but that doesn’t make me any more comfortable in the supposed security system that is my signature.

Not that I’ve had to use it much in recent times as nearly everywhere now supports the use of a PIN with credit card transactions. Still there are a few places where I’ll have to sign, especially if I’m using my AMEX, and with only a few exceptions do they ever actually check to see if my signature matches the one on the back of the card. It’s even better when places have the NFC readers as they cut the already short amount of time required to complete the transaction down to almost nothing. This hasn’t yet made its way onto all cards or places of purchase however which is a shame as it would also mean that the second I get a NFC enabled phone I could theoretically do away with my cards completely.

I had figured that the signature was going to stick around for a fair while longer though since it’s still the defacto standard for authorizing or approving something. However I saw today that the big names in the credit card industry, namely Visa and MasterCard, have had their eye on phasing out the inherently insecure authorization method for some time now with it originally scheduled to be gone within the next couple months. That’s been pushed back until the chipped cards make up a greater percentage of the total cards in Australia but it does signal that the writing is on the wall for putting pen to paper when it comes to making your purchases.

It’s a good move for both sides of the credit card equation as anything that reduces the barrier to purchasing something, however small, will result in an increased usage of said payment services. Even though I may only save a handful of seconds using contactless payment I still find it a whole bunch more enjoyable than having to swipe, pin and/or sign (yeah sometimes I’ve put my PIN in only have it require a signature as well) in order to complete a transaction. Additionally the use of PINs and contactless payment devices is far more secure than a signature which is rarely checked for authenticity.

Now all we need in Australia is something like Google Wallet so I can do away with my wallet almost completely. Now that’d be something!