The growing concern over credit and debit card frauds has led the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to bring about some changes in their guidelines to secure transactions using these cards. The new guideline will be effective from October 1.
Recently, SBI has started an extra safety feature for all debit card holders using SBI ATMs — along with PIN one also has to enter OTP sent to mobile. Banks are also adopting safety measures from their end.
For international transactions, online transactions and contactless card transactions, the card holders will have to set preferences, according to RBI.
How will these new guidelines issued by RBI help:
This will protect cards from being misused — either there will be a restriction in international use or amount spent.
The new guidelines only allow cards to be used in India for online transactions, at ATMs and point of sale (PoS) terminals. To be able to use it for international transactions, the banks will have to be notified by the card user.
Many banks have issued contactless cards which allowed transactions below Rs 2,000 per day to take place without any PIN. But consumers can now have the option to activate and deactivate this feature.
Even if there is an unauthorised transaction, and if the card user has set a lower limit then the damage will be limited.
Setting transaction limits will be usually in developing financial discipline among the users. This will lead people to spend as per the limit set on the card.
The card holder can change the transaction limits via ATMs, IVR, internet banking and mobile app any time.
These changes are only for debit and credit cards — not valid on prepaid gift cards and other cards.
