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Mastercard's Plans to Fully Eliminate Signature Requirement Next Year Will Speed Up Apple Pay
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[doublepost=1508510860][/doublepost]My cat probably would like Apple Paw but God knows how many roast chickens and boxes of kibble she would buy.
That happened about two years ago here. I can hold my iPhone near the EFTPOS terminal to pay, like Apple Pay. Apple Pay is better and my preferred payment method.
Mastercard today announced that cardholders will no longer have to provide a signature for any purchases in the United States and Canada after April 2018. The change will apply to both debit and credit cards.
Mastercard said removing the need to sign for card-present transactions will not have any impact on customer security due to modern safeguards.
"Our secure network and state-of-the art systems combined with new digital payment methods that include chip, tokenization, biometrics, and specialized digital platforms use newer and more secure methods to prove identity," said Linda Kirkpatrick, an Executive Vice President at Mastercard.
Mastercard's consumer research unsurprisingly found that a majority of people believe it would be easier to pay, and that checkout lines would move faster, if they didn't need to sign the receipt when making a purchase.
Already, more than 80 percent of in-store Mastercard transactions in North America today do not require a cardholder signature at checkout. Mastercard said both customers and merchants support the change.
The long-existing "signature required" clause is intended to verify that customers own the debit or credit card they are attempting to use. The process is supposed to involve the cashier verifying the signature on the receipt matches the one on the back of the card, but in reality, this process is often skipped.
The change should make Apple Pay transactions even quicker for Mastercard cardholders. Currently, even when using Apple Pay, sometimes a signature can be required for purchases over $50 in the United States.
The signature requirement is already very uncommon in Canada, where chip-and-PIN cards are the norm. At most merchants in Canada, customers insert a card into the payment terminal, enter a PIN, and the purchase is completed.
Mastercard removing the signature requirement won't speed up Apple Pay in Canada, however, as contactless payments aren't generally permitted for purchases above $100. Above this limit, customers must use chip-and-PIN.
Mastercard currently doesn't require a signature for purchases totaling $50 or less. Visa's no-signature limit is $25, but the amount is upped to $50 for purchases made at grocery stores and discount stores like Walmart.
Article Link: Mastercard's Plans to Fully Eliminate Signature Requirement Next Year Will Speed Up Apple Pay
Yes, because AMEX ExpressPay 3.0+ kernel supports it in mag stripe mode. The data is not sent to the issuer though, it is just an assertion provided to the terminal in this case. AMEX mag stripe mode is almost a full EMV transaction, but with less inputs to the cryptogram, and then manipulation of the resulting data to form a mag stripe auth message.
A lot of terminals in Canada do support it, and I have done >$200 Visa transactions in Canada with a US card and no signature or PIN is required.
If you attempt to tap and the reader says something like 'CONTACTLESS LIMIT EXCEEDED', then this is a reader imposed limit. However if the tap is successful and then you get a DECLINED message, then this is is the bank declining. In many cases merchants don't have control over these settings anyways this as updates are pushed automatically from the processor to the terminal.
I can't even remember the last time a merchant even touched my card for verification. When I worked in fast food (about 11 years ago), it was policy to never touch the customer's card and let them insert or tap it. I see this everywhere, as it would be quite ridiculous to let someone else handle your card. At a restaurant, they always come to you with the mobile terminal where you put in your card, press the tip percentage, put in your pin, and pass it to the next person. Gas stations and stores always have a mobile terminal for you to tap or insert. Walmart is the only one I know of that doesn't do tap, but they do chip and pin. Safeway, Chevron, and McDonalds (3 random places) never handle your card, and all accept tap or at least chip and pin, and don't do signatures, (and this has been for over 10 years). I didn't even know places even had pens at the tills anymore until this post.
I'll have to try this again to see what rejection message I get. I think I always get the latter one but I'm not sure - I didn't pay attention before. Can I ask at what particular stores (or chains) in Canada you used Apple pay for >$200? As far as banks supporting transactions over $100, the only thing I know is that mine (Bank of Montreal) allows it in principle. I mentioned earlier that I was able to buy BeatsX at an Apple Store using Apple Pay and that was more than 100$. That was about a year ago. But when I try it at supermarkets it doesn't work.
Indeed. When Visa announced Quick Chip I predicted that everywhere will eventually adopt it; it looks like that's happening.
That must've been a few years back. Of course I've known about it for years. I could easily see that my relatives all had credit cards with a chip whenever they took them out. I bought a Deutsche Telekom phone card in 2000 that had a chip. I kept it and showed it to some people over here. They asked me what was and I said hopefully the future over here (explained it after my future comment). Probably/hopefully by 2020, chip and PIN will be commonplace here. At least the first step, making cards with chips mandatory, has been taken. The only thing I'm not sure if I want it is to have a chip implanted in me like some have done.
Don't know the last time I signed when using my Master Card, just use a PIN.
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Here in Australia you can't even use the swipe first, must use the chip slot on most cards that have a chip... which most do and have for about 10 years.
Most merchants limit the purchases. @D582 I could see out of ignorance some merchants may not realize that the contactless payment transaction limit is actually their discretion, not the banks.
Someone on here commented that the Loblaws Superstore has a limit up to $200 now (so I'm going to send a letter to their customer service to get the limit in their Zehrs stores bumped up too). In the chains it's a policy done at the corporate level.
Don't get me started on the LCBO and Auto dealers!!!
RBC and CIBC have no limits for contactless payments. I heard Scotiabank does...so everyone should be sending them hate mail.
It would go back to the credit card agreements. Believe the credit card companies / banks are absorbing the risk (that's why the merchants are paying premiums on the transactions to the CC companies).
Edit: Most merchants I talk to have no idea. They think it's the banks that are imposing that. (at least here in Canada, for the most part, that isn't the case at all). That's simply the default for these terminals.
It seems strange that this power should be given to the merchant. I may be wrong, but given the nature of contactless (and the absence of a security mechanism) it sounds like the bank will cover the fraud risk up to a certain transaction amount (defined in the agreement) and the merchant can freely set the threshold above this but assumes the risk.
It may have started out that way (we've had contactless payments for how long?) It's been quite some time. Initially the issuers of the machines (banks or CC companies) likely had the limits to minimize risk. But now many people are migrating to using smart devices to utilize this - which actually is more secure than the cards themselves, as you have to be authenticated to your device to use the form of payment.
Using your iPhone or Apple Watch is every bit (or more) secure than chip+pin. It's in their best interest to embrace it.
I think the smart money would be on the cards eventually disappearing entirely...but we need to get rid of the limits for that to happen.
Sorry I thought you were talking about contactless without iPhone / tokenisation.
As long as the terminals have the logic to differentiate between, yes. For the merchants that have antiquated terminals, they may have to suck up the risk (or upgrade their units). The banks/credit card companies are really the only ones with enough clout to get the merchants / retail chains to change. Well, that and we all should be messaging the customer service departments of the chains to get them to get these limits removed (or at least moved up to reasonable levels).
Both terminals AND cards can have built-in limits for various transactions. Whichever is lowest, decides.
So it's possible that the bank decided on a contactless limit.
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Yep, but the limits that we're seeing for contactless payments up here (for the most part) are merchant/retail limits set on their card terminal.
If we can get those waived for the more secure, tokenized contactless payments the smart devices provide, then we could eventually see the physical cards disappear. (and that, having an account without an external number) will be pretty damn secure.