The Aussies have already been told "No Pin, no pay", and it was thought Kiwi credit card users would be told the same.

But now Visa has postponed until the end of April the date from which signatures can no longer be offered to make Visa credit card purchases.

The delay has been caused by a core of obdurate cardholders who stubbornly refuse to set up a Pin.

Unlike Australia, MasterCard has no plans to join Visa in setting a deadline for the end of signatures, and it seems that lower fraud rates in New Zealand may be the answer.

The demise of signature transactions on credit cards was supposed to take place in New Zealand at the end of 2014, and even that was three months after Visa and MasterCard ended the use of signatures across the Tasman.

It was part of a successful anti-fraud crackdown, in which the credit card scheme operators worked with banks to make it harder and harder for cards to be misused by thieves.

While a signature is relatively easy to copy, there are 10,000 combinations of numbers possible with a four-digit Pin, so unless a crook knows it - by watching over a cardholder's shoulder while they make a purchase, for example - it renders cards difficult to use.

Ian McKindley from Visa said measures to reduce card fraud had been successful.

Losses to card misuse are now around 6 cents per $100, a number that has halved in the past 10 years, with the number a little higher in Australia, he said.

The end of signatures should help bring that down further, but while 97 per cent of transactions were now Pin or small contactless payments, some continued to sign.

Because banks absorb cardholder losses from fraud, providing they comply with the terms and conditions of their card, McKindley says the issue is not one of consumer choice because it is ultimately the banks' money that is at risk.

The investment into "hardening the payments system security" had been huge, McKindley said, with the banks having spent up big on fraud detection software.

McKindley said the banks had also worked hard with merchants to ensure they were extra vigilant with signature transactions, and offered a bounty of $100 to any retail assistant who spotted a fraudulent attempt to use a card.

Extra work has also been done with high-risk merchants such as jewellers, because a crook trying to profit from using someone else's card often tries to buy high-value items they can later turn into cash.

McKindley added that banks run merchant centres they can call to alert the bank to a "Code 10", as it's known, so as not to alert a thief who is still in the shop.

MasterCard says it has no plans to make Pins mandatory. Instead, it will allow a process of attrition to finally kill them.

New MasterCards do not allow signatures, and will gradually replace the old MasterCards in people's purses and wallets.

"From April 2014, all new MasterCard cards issued include PayPass technology, which requires a Pin for any purchases over $80," said Peter Chisnall, MasterCard New Zealand country manager.

PayPass is "near field" technology - it allows a card to make a payment by passing it near a payment console, and is popular with shops as it speeds up transactions.

McKindley explained: "There are some slow movers. Our deadline was the end of 2014, but there are a few people . . . whether they are older folk like myself who are a bit slower, I don't know."

The banks have been asking them to come in to set up a Pin, but those requests will soon cease to be voluntary, if they want to keep using the cards.