WASHINGTON – The Merchants Payments Coalition lauded American Express for joining MasterCard and Discover in taking a step to improve card-payment security by no longer requiring customers to engage in signing receipts. Retailers now call on Visa, the biggest card company, to stop resisting measures that would lead to making its customers’ cards safer, too.

This week, Amex said that by April, the company would not require customers to verify card purchases by signing a receipt, an action that does nothing to prevent fraud. In announcing the decision, the card company quoted Walmart as saying: “Having to sign a recipe can be a hassle for customers and is not necessary to prevent fraud at the point of sale.”

Dropping this practice will show the claim it improves security is nothing but a fiction. And it opens the door to real, effective methods of verifying transactions, such as personal identification numbers and advanced technologies.

That will bring real security to consumers—so long as the security standards are open and transparent. Personal identification numbers (PINs) are 700% safer than signatures, according to the Federal Reserve.

Until recently, the card companies had clung to signature verification in the United States, even though the use of a PIN instead is standard in the industrialized world, including at ATMs in the United States. Consequently, the U.S. has become an increasingly frequent target of card fraud.

Retailers are encouraged that Amex, Discover and MasterCard have recognized they can end the unhelpful signature practice and make transactions faster and more convenient. The move will help everyone realize that we must look elsewhere for better fraud prevention.