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SBI blocks lakhs of debit cards without warning to customers
MUMBAI: State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, and its subsidiaries, have blocked about 5-6 lakh debit cards of their customers after noticing suspicious
MUMBAI: State Bank of India, the country’s largest bank, and its subsidiaries, have blocked about 5-6 lakh debit cards of their customers after noticing suspicious transactions at third-party ATM machines.
Card-holders were caught unawares as no prior notice was given to them. The bank subsequently sent them emails and text messages about the block and asked them to re-apply for new cards at their respective branches.
“About 0.25% of our cards have been blocked. We came to know that some of our customers have used them at some virus-infected ATMs,” said Shiv Kumar Bhasin, chief technology officer at SBI, said.
“These were white label ATMs operated by Hitachi payment services,” he added without elaborating further. It is learnt that the bank may have taken the step to avoid misuse.
White label ATMs are operated and maintained by a separate non-banking company.
The total number of debit cards issued by SBI as on July is 20.27 crore. Of these, 0.25% or about 5.07 lakh cards have been blocked.
SBI and its associate banks — State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Travancore and State Bank of Patiala — have issued a total of about 25 crore debit cards to their customers.
An SBI branch manager in Mumbai said, “In the past 3-4 days, we saw some unidentified and suspicious transactions at some ATMs and hence the cards were blocked immediately.”
“The cards have been blocked across many circles,” he explained further.
ATM frauds have led to most banks taking precautionary measures by periodically reminding customers to change their debit card personal identification number (PIN) or password on a regular basis (every month or in 3-6 months).
Banks have also been asking their customers not to share their password with anybody in order to avoid security breaches, such as skimming and cloning of cards, that could lead to data theft from the accounts.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked all banks to upgrade their debit cards to a chip-based EMV card, which has added layers of safety.
In a chip-based card, information is not validated by bank servers unless the correct PIN is used, whereas information on a magnetic strip is easily accessible which can be dangerous.
