Having one’s bank account cleaned out from unauthorized withdrawals can traumatize anyone no matter how financially stable one can be.
The extent of ATM card scams and banking fraud has been on the rise, prompting the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to issue a directive that required all parties issuing ATM and credit cards to follow the Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) security standard.
BancNet, the country’s sole multi-bank and e-payments network, supported its members’ migration to this international security standard throughout 2017 and continues to do so until all its members are EMV-compliant.
EMV cards are equipped with a microprocessor chip that store and protect cardholder information.
The EMV chip can save thousands, if not millions, of your hard-earned money. It helps secure your account through card authentication, cardholder verification and transaction authorization. With card authentication, the card is authenticated during transactions, protecting you against counterfeit cards. The process of cardholder verification protects against unauthorized changes by preventing fraudulent parties from accessing data, while the procedure of transaction authorization allows transaction information be authorized online using defined rules.
By the middle of the year, 96 percent of BancNet‘s members’ issuer host systems and 97 percent of acquirer host systems had been certified EMV-compliant.
In addition, 97 percent of BancNet members had obtained their chip card personalization validation certificates and 92 percent their terminal EMV-compliant certificates. Moreover, BancNet has enhanced the security of online payments on its web portal—BancNet Online. It has implemented a Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) system as an added layer of security on top of the ATM PIN. It requires the keying in of other information, that is, user name, password, and a one-time PIN that only the cardholder knows in order to validate his identity.