Smart cards that will make shoppers' signatures redundant and could prevent 70 per cent of fraud cases are to be introduced across Britain.

Banks have begun sending customers new debit and credit cards with embedded chips that will store their PIN, so transactions can be completed by keying in a four-digit code.

Forum Response: British Retail Consortium

Amanda Miller of the British Retail Consortium, said: "The rollout is a huge task with more than 850,000 shop terminals, 122 million cards and 40,000 cash machines being upgraded and 2.7 million retail staff being trained, so it won't happen overnight.

"There are household name retailers in every sector who are committed to making this happen by the end of 2004."

Forum Response: APACS

Sandra Quinn, a spokeswoman for the Association for Payment Clearing Services, said: "We tested chip and PIN earlier this year and there is a real appetite for the new system among consumers. More than 80 per cent of people in the trial said they were in favour.

"Across the country, people seem to agree. Our latest survey shows that 84 per cent of people are 'quite keen' or 'can't wait' to use it and 95 per cent think it will be 'child's play' or 'fairly easy' to use. It's full steam ahead from today.

"New cards will be issued and shops will switch on over time so that a majority of transactions become chip and PIN by 2005."