Bank clients urged to claim EMV cards

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu Bankers Club said the banking sector's migration into EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) has been on track, urging clients to claim their new cards in their respective banks.

"Per BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) circular deadline for banks was last June 30, 2018. As far as I know, all banks have complied but some clients did not claim their EMV cards yet," CBC president Mario Fritz Palileo told The FREEMAN.

The bank official said that based on the update from CBC member banks, they are "on track to complete with migrating ATM cards to EMV type."

The EMV technology is key to minimize the cases of card fraud and skimming, he had said.

The BSP had given banks until June 30 this year to fully comply with the EMV shift mandate.

The central bank has pushed the banking industry towards full adoption of EMV technology at a much faster pace.

Failure to meet the June 2018 final deadline will subject banks to monetary sanctions.

Banks had been told to raise awareness as well as manage customers’ expectations on the replacement of their payment cards including debit and credit.

Banks are further expected to develop strategies to entice or force clients to replace their old cards with EMV cards such as deactivation of existing cards by certain date, offering of rewards or freebies, and/or liability shift for skimming incidents.

EMV chip-enabled cards have enhanced features that verify transactions made on card, minimizing cases of card fraud incidents and identity theft.

The regulatory requirement to shift to EMV is part of the banking industry’s move to boost protection against fraudulent activities usually carried out in electronic banking channels.

Last November 2014, the Bangko Sentral had required all supervised financial entities with debit and credit card issuing and acquiring functions to migrate their entire payment card network to the more secure EMV technology.

The EMV electronic chip technology is designed to give tighter security and prevent ATM card fraud incidents.

EMV is a global standard for chip-based credit and debit transactions and is deemed more secured than the magnetic stripe technology which is currently used in most bank-issued cards in the country.