BSP urges all sectors to work together to prevent ATM fraud

MANILA, Philippines - Banks, law enforcers, and consumers should all work together to minimize losses from stolen information from automated teller machine (ATM) cards, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.

“This kind of loss  should be approached as a shared responsibility,” BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. said in an e-mail to reporters over the weekend.

“Banks are required to take all prudent measures to minimize the risk. Customers should be careful in handling their ATM cards. Police authorities should be running hard after the criminal syndicates,” he said.

Tetangco made the comment when asked if banks should be required to provide insurance products to cover losses from ATM fraud or scams.

“Without these in place, insurance will be a costly and counter-productive proposition. Customers will ultimately bear the cost either in higher fees or more restrictive services,” Tetangco said.

The central bank has estimated losses to ATM fraud at P220 million in 2013, Vicente De Villa III, director at the BSP’s Supervisory Data Center, told a Senate hearing last month.

Thieves have resorted to skimming, in which information stored in one’s card is stolen through devices installed in an ATM, the BSP chief said.

“A skimmed card by itself will not work unless the PIN has also been compromised. So a related issue is how the password is stolen with the skimmed card,” Tetangco said.

“In the past, it was the hidden camera that was the solution. Banks could validate who and when people withdrew from which ATM machine. It turns out that not all ATM machines have the camera [because] a machine normally has a 10 year life and legacy machines still operating don’t have the camera,” he added.