SomeoneSomewhere:

 

SmartPay Merchant Agreement: (which is clearly never ever complied with)

 

The Merchant shall only accept a Card for payment after it has confirmed all of the following (if applicable):

 

• In respect of a Card, it bears the specimen signature of its cardholder at the back and the same has not or is not
  reasonably suspected of having been tampered with or altered in any manner

The Merchant shall not accept the following Cards for use in the System:

 

• A Card without specimen signature of the Cardholder on the back of the Card, or Credit Cards with specimen of
  signatures that are unclear or that have been altered.
• [...]

ANZ Merchant Agreement:

 

 

You must seek prior authorisation [...] the signature panel on the Nominated Card is blank or the signature has
been altered or defaced;

 

 

I continue to be amused as to why the banks insist on the card holder signing the back of the card, where it states Authorised Signature.

I am old enough to remember when one had to physically visit a bank to collect a new card, and one had to sign the back of the card in front of a teller, who then verified that the signature was correct.

We now have cards posted to us in the mail, and we are expected to sign them? How can the status of Authorised Signature even be asserted these days when there is no validation of it?

Merchants are no longer required to require a signature, as the multipart sales vouchers that used to be used with the mechanical impression devices have both been discontinued.

Not that it is a payment card, my New World Club Card even has a requirement for an authorised signature on the back of it, which is crazy, as they don't have a specimen of my signature and never required it as part of the joining process.

Signing the back of the card is a requirement that is now surely well out of date and is presumably a left-over of an old 1970s/1980s card design template.