Act to curb debit, credit card skimming & cloning: RBI to banks z

RBI on Thursday asked banks to upgrade all ATMs by September 2017 with additional safety measures to prevent skimming and cloning of debit and credit cards. The Reserve Bank noted that while the POS terminal infrastructure in the country has been enabled to accept and process EMV Chip and PIN cards, the ATM infrastructure, on the whole, continues to process the card transactions based on data from the magnetic stripe.

"As a result, the ATM card transactions remain vulnerable to skimming, cloning, etc frauds, even though the cards are EMV Chip and PIN based. It has, therefore, become necessary to mandate EMV Chip and PIN card acceptance and processing at ATMs also," the RBI said. Contact Chip processing of EMV Chip and PIN cards at ATMs would not only enhance the safety and security of transactions at ATMs but also facilitate preparedness of the banks for the proposed 'EMV Liability Shift' for ATM transactions, as and when it comes into effect, it said.