American Express is the latest card network to eliminate the requirement for merchants to collect signatures for all purchase transactions at the point of sale beginning in April 2018, according to a press release.

Discover last week announced it 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.

American Express said in the release that the need for signatures has declined around the world due to a number of advancements in the payments industry such as contactless payments and EMV.

"The payments landscape has evolved to the point where we can now eliminate this pain point for our merchants," said Jaromir Divilek, executive vice president of the global network business for American Express, in the release. "Our fraud capabilities have advanced so that signatures are no longer necessary to fight fraud. In addition, the majority of American Express transactions today already do not require a signature at the point of sale as a result of previous policy changes we made to help our merchants."