Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express have said they will no longer require customers to sign their receipts when they check out at stores.

While companies can continue to require signatures, retail giants like Walmart and Target are also stopping what one Walmart representative called a "worthless" practice.

With the rise of online shopping and new tech like EMV chips in credit cards, signatures have become less necessary as a safety measure and can often slow down checkout lines.

As credit-card companies kill customer-signature requirements, retailers like Walmart and Target are following suit.

Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express have either already stopped or announced plans to stop requiring customers to sign their receipts when checking out.

"We believe making the signature requirement optional for EMV chip-enabled merchants is the responsible next step to enhance security and convenience at the point of sale," Dan Sanford, Visa's vice president of consumer products, said in a company blog post in January.

While retailers have the option to continue to require signatures, it seems that few major companies will do so.

Target plans to eliminate the requirement this month, The New York Times reported on Sunday. A Walmart spokesman told the newspaper that the company considered signatures "worthless" and would also stop requiring them.

Credit-card companies and retailers alike have cited the rise of online shopping and new technology like EMV chips in cards as making made signatures less necessary as a fraud-protection measure and have argue that requiring them can slow down checkout lines.

Smaller retailers, however, are likely to still require signatures for at least a while longer. The payment companies ShopKeep and Square, used by many such businesses, told The Times they didn't plan to update their systems to skip the customer-signature step.