Consumers soon will have the option of verifying their credit card purchases by entering a personal identification number on a keypad instead of signing their name.

The change, intended to speed up retail queues and decrease fraud, will be available nationally for all Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Diners Club credit cards from June 4.

The move puts credit cards with a magnetic stripe on equal footing with Eftpos cards, says Simon Greig, project manager with Phoenix Consulting, which has overseen the transition.

After New Zealand, he says, Australia is believed to be only the second country to implement the technology. Elsewhere, credit cards require the added information carried in a computer chip to save customers the time and effort of signing transactions slips.

Greig says it has taken about a year to co-ordinate the various providers. "It's probably the first occasion that all of the [credit card] schemes have offered the same service at the same time."

Buyers still will be able to sign for purchases if they wish. However, one key benefit of the new option is speed. "When you're in a queue and have five people ahead of you and 15 people behind you, you probably want to move pretty quickly," he says. "If you've got a PIN, it will add ... speed."

Incrementally, it may not sound like much for customers to wait for a printed receipt then sign and return that receipt but it adds up, says Andrew Woodward, spokesman for Visa International. "They say it'll speed up things at the checkout by eight seconds or something like that."

The upgrade will affect more than 20 million cards and 600,000 point-of-sale terminals across the country.

The other benefit is financial security, says Steven Anderson of the financial research company InfoChoice.

"From my point of view, it is a fantastic addition because it will - without a doubt - reduce some fraud. In every country where you have to have a PIN, fraud numbers have dropped dramatically," he says.

One reason for this is that signatures often go unchecked. At restaurants, for example, customers typically sign a bill at a table and return their credit card to their wallet without a waiter ever having the opportunity to compare the signatures on the card and receipt.

Another factor for increased security, says Frank Lopez, a financial analyst at Cannex, comes down to the basic mechanics of fraud: "It's easier to forge a signature than it is to guess a PIN," he says.

Most credit cards come with a PIN, although Greig says many people may have forgotten their security number or never even realised they had one. He says these customers can contact the bank that issued their card to get a new PIN. The exception to this is Diners Card, which doesn't provide a PIN unless a customer asks.

Woodward urges anyone who doesn't have or remember their PIN to get a new number. "It's a good idea if Australians are travelling internationally that they have a PIN on their card," he says, particularly as vendors in Europe and the UK expect it.

The computer chips embedded in most European cards and some newer credit cards in Australia represent the next level of security, which Anderson believes will be ubiquitous here soon. The June 4 roll-out for cards with magnetic stripes means consumers will benefit immediately from PIN verification for purchases. Anderson is confident it's only a first step towards more sophisticated levels of security.

"They're warming everyone up to a complete changeover to [cards with a] chip and PIN," he predicts. Anderson, who was involved when Barclays Bank in Britain moved to credit cards with chips, believes the shift will occur in the next three or four years. The reason is simple: it is harder to steal data from a chip than from a magnetic stripe.

"It's demonstrated to reduce fraud," he says. "I've never had one of my cards fraudulently used but I know plenty of people who have.

"And the inconvenience it causes is unimaginable. It's in everyone's best interest that fraud is reduced, and fraud is massive."