Philippines' local banks would have to adopt a new security feature in ATM cards soon to combat card fraud.
The ATM security feature is on top of installing surveillance cameras and posting guards at ATM booths.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) officials said it was about time banks started using EMV chip technology in ATM cards to counter card “cloning” or “skimming.”
EMV, a technology developed by Europay, MasterCard and Visa, has a chip that contains information needed to use the card for payment and is protected by various security features.
Vicente de Villa III, director for BSP's Supervisory Data Center, said the body had issued Circular No. 808 requiring all banks to shift from the magnetic strip technology to EMV chip technology.
All banks should have issued EMV-capable cards by January 2017, he said.
“The difference between the two is that the information in the magnetic strip is static and permanent, and hence, easy to copy, while EMV chip is more dynamic. Every time you use it, there's an algorithm being computed,” he said.
De Villa said the BSP had set 2017 as the deadline because the shift to the EMV chip was costly and would entail replacing hardware and software.