BancNet Inc., the country’s largest automated teller machine (ATM) consortium, said on Tuesday that banks still outside the so-called Europay Mastercard Visa (EMV) domain, which is a global standard for authenticating credit-and debit-card transactions, should now begin using a domestic EMV application.
BancNet Vice President and Business Operations Division Chief Rene S. Natividad said an EMV Task Force was created some time back to formulate the EMV (for Europay Mastercard Visa chip card technology) implementation guidelines and work on the timetable.
“It was recently decided upon that banks without tie-ups with international brands, such as Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Diners, UnionPay, etc., will have to use the domestic EMV application that was devised by the task force. Until the EMV is fully implemented, even past January 2017, a technical fallback is being considered,” he told the BusinessMirror.
This means that ATM, credit and debit cards still using the magnetic-stripe technology may still be used in case something goes wrong with the bank’s EMV system. He said these and a lot more technical and operational issues were being discussed and have to be agreed upon by the banks and other stakeholders.
“Since a couple of years back, we have learned that fraudsters already started to crack the EMV and it proved to be very costly. It will just be a matter of time before a cost-effective solution will be made available to counter EMV [fraud],” he said.
Natividad said so-called biometrics is one of the security features being looked at by experts, although this was but not that rated a priority at the moment.
He said in Russia and Malaysia, criminals now conduct physical attacks on ATMs, literally opening them up and accessing their CPU through USB ports and taking command of the machines, dispense cash by just computer commands and without the use of cards or corresponding PINs.
In the country, banks are mandated to install PIN covers to be used as shields to protect the PIN from being captured by fraudsters through inconspicuous cameras.
There are also roving guards, who regularly check ATMs for any abnormal attachments on the machines, such as card-skimming devices, PIN pad overlays or fake PIN pads, cameras under the PIN shields, card and cash-trapping gadgets.
The banks, in coordination with BancNet, Megalink and the Inter Network Anti-Fraud Committee, have been regularly releasing awareness posters, such as “Pera ko, Bantay ko!” and WIGL for “Watch” your surroundings, “Inspect” the ATM, “Guard” your PIN, “Look” for another ATM. Posters were also disseminated to banks to be displayed on ATM booths.
“You have to trust the ATM system,” Natividad said.