Beginning in April 2018, Discover will no longer require signatures at the point of sale for credit and debit transactions on the Discover Global Network in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

The card network said in a press release that this move is part of Discover's efforts to continually improve the payment experience by speeding up the time spent at checkout all while maintaining a high level of security for both customers and merchants. Discover has already implemented a number of digital authentication technologies such as tokenization, multi-factor authentication, and biometrics that are more secure than a signature and provide a more seamless payment transaction.

"As the payments industry continues to evolve and introduce new methods of transacting, we're making sure that Discover is providing customers and merchants with a smooth and more secure payments experience," said Jasma Ghai, vice president of global products innovation at Discover, in the release. "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."

Merchants interested in no longer requiring a signature for Discover Global Network transactions may need to update their point of sale systems, according to the release.