MANILA, July 3 — A leader of the House of Representatives on Monday urged the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Monetary Board to shorten the deadline for banks’ compliance on the upgrade to Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) chip-embedded cards to avert skimming and other fraudulent activities.
In a letter addressed to BSP Governor Nestor Espenilla Jr., House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries chair Ben Evardone called on the central bank to shorten the deadline of shifting to EMV of automated teller machines (ATM) cards to December 31, 2017 instead of the original June 30, 2018.
“The Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries in the House of Representatives has been informed of fraudulent activities, like skimming on ATMs of local banks in the country,” said Evardone.
“Skimming was attempted upon ATMs of the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) last year, resulting in the apprehension of foreign nationals. Also, the Banco De Oro (BDO) Bank reported recent skimming attempts upon its ATMs,” he added.
Evardone noted that criminals are becoming “more sophisticated” in the tools and wares used in their fraudulent activities.
“Hence, unless the deadline for compliance is shortened, we fear that more bank clients will be victimized, to the prejudice of the national interest in general, and the banking industry in particular,” he added.
EMV is the global standard for chip-based credit and debit card transactions with boosted security features, including encryption locks and keys to authenticate transactions, thus protecting data from being compromised.
The chip-embedded card contains unique transaction details that are activated each time the card is used. It is also protected by additional layers of security. (Filane Mikee Cervantes/PNA)
