A recent press report said that the RBI has asked banks to implement various safety measures related to credit card and debit card usage over a period of next two years in order to minimize fraud cases and ensure security of transactions.
Reports said that the RBI has asked banks to strengthen the existing payment infrastructure and future proofing system along with adoption of fraud risk management practices within a period of next 12-24 months. The RBI has said that the increased usage of credit/debit cards at various delivery channels also have witnessed the increase of frauds taking place due to the cards being lost/stolen, data being compromised and cards skimmed/counterfeited. It said that there was a need for safety measures for card usage.
According to the RBI circular the regulator has asked banks to strengthen infrastructure for accepting these cards, and commercial readiness of acquiring infrastructure to support PIN at POS (points of sale) should be ready by June 30, 2013. It has also said that the enablement of all POS terminals to accept debit card transactions with PIN should be completed by 30 June, 2013. The apex bank also directed banks to be ready from technical perspective to issue EVM cards by 30 June, 2013.
The RBI has recently hiked base rates by 25 basic points, in order to control inflation. The hike in base rate has affected the home loan and other loan borrowers as banks have hiked their lending rates.