Credit Card fraud widespread

Tamara Nissanka

Credit and debit card frauds are abundant and it impacts millions of financial institutions in the world. In South Asia alone the annual loss suffered by banks amounts to millions of dollars, UbiQ Software Director Product Management Ramesh Ajitaprasad said at a seminar held at the Ceylon Continental Hotel yesterday.

The seminar was organised by Ceylon Business Appliances (CBA), to educate banks on migration to Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) cards. During the course of the seminar Ajitaprasad explained the advantages of incorporating EMV cards into banking operations. Security and flexibility are the two major virtues of EMV cards, in comparison with the conventional magnetic stripe card that includes a signature strip.

According to NBS Technologies Asia Pacific Sales Director Raymond Hui, EMV Smart Cards assure maximum security for credit card details, as the information is stored on a chip embedded in the card.

The cardholder also requires a pin number. EMV Smart Cards cannot be duplicated. Banks and other financial institutions, as well as their customers are continually subject to fraud by methods such as skimming, phishing and spoofing, which involve capturing information from the magnetic strip, sending bogus emails claiming to be from a bank or credit card company and asking details including account information.

Ajitaprasad highlighted that the EMV Smart Card technology is capable of overcoming these issues, and has become a global trend especially in Europe. In South America 80 per cent of the countries adopt EMV cards.

Malaysia is the Asian leader in acquiring this technology, and South Asia is rapidly following the trend.

NBS Technologies and UbiQ Software operate locally via Ceylon Business Appliances in introducing EMV Smart Cards.

Ajitaprasad emphasised that local banks should change their policies and consider investing in the installation of more secure ways of issuing cards.