BDO rolls out first EMV-MasterCard ATM

MANILA, Philippines – BDO Unibank Inc. is set to become the first universal bank to roll out an EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) -embedded BDO MasterCard ATM debit card as part of the bank’s three-year migration plan.

Edwin Romualdo Reyes, executive vice president and Transaction Banking Group head at BDO, said the launch of the new BDO MasterCard ATM debit card complements the earlier deployment of EMV-ready automated teller machines (ATM) in the country.

BDO of retail and banking magnate Henry Sy is set to roll out EMV chip-enabled MasterCard branded ATM debit cards to new card holders within the second quarter of the year and migrate existing magnetic stripe-only cards to EMV cards by the second half.

He said the rollout forms part of BDO’s three-year migration plan for its EMV-embedded ATM debit card.

This will not only make BDO at par with global standards for debit card payments with enhanced security features but also ensure the safety and security of its cardholders.

An EMV chip-embedded card has boosted security features, which include among others, encryption locks and keys to authenticate the card and the cardholder’s transaction, protecting card data from being compromised.

“EMV chip technology has already become the global standard for credit card and debit card payments. It will help increase security, reduce card-present fraud and enable the use of future value-added applications,” he said.

Reyes said EMV is already prevalent in Europe while over 500 million EMV compatible credit and debit cards have been issued in the US as of late last year.

 “With this rollout, BDO will be the first bank in the country to transact under the Mastercard EMV end-to-end,” Reyes said.

More than 90 percent of BDO’s ATMs deployed in different parts of the country are EMV-ready.

The Sy-led bank will be the first to comply with the directive of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for banking institutions to shift from magnetic stripe technology to EMV chip-enabled cards by 2017.

The BSP ordered banks in October 2013 to put up additional measures to guard against fraud and skimming attacks pending the migration to EMV standard by 2017.

Aside from the adoption of EMV-chip carrying cards, the BSP in 2013 required banks to equip their ATM units with end-to-end Triple Data Encryption Standard starting this year to strengthen the electronic retail payment networks and also protect consumers against fraud.

The bank regulator issued the guidelines in Nov. 2014 for the replacement of magnetic-stripe cards in favor of EMV-chip carrying ones in preparation for the required adoption of the new technology by 2017.