BDO urges clients to get EMV chip-enabled ATM cards

BSP earlier set January 1, 2017 as the deadline for banks to fully migrate to EMV technology but most banks failed to meet it.(Photo: BDO Unibank/ Facebook)

MANILA— An official of Sy-led BDO Unibank Inc. is urging the bank’s clients who have not availed of the EMV chip-enabled automated teller machine (ATM) card to get their new cards.

In a statement, BDO executive vice president and transaction banking head Edwin G. Reyes said: “making the shift to the EMV-chip ATM debit card is one way to protect the clients from electronic fraud.”

“It has enhanced security features, which include among others, encryption locks and keys to authenticate the card and the cardholder’s transaction, protecting card data from being compromised,” he said.

“We hope our customers would embrace this significant improvement being implemented by the entire banking industry,” he added.

Shift on the use of Europay, Mastercard, and Visa-powered ATM cards is in line with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Circular No. 859, which is aimed at ensuring safe transactions in the country.

BSP earlier set January 1, 2017 as the deadline for banks to fully migrate to EMV technology but most banks failed to meet it.

Thus, the central bank’s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) has set a “hard deadline” of June 30, 2018 to fully comply with the requirement and banks that fail to meet the deadline will be penalized.

The statement said BDO started the shift to the EMV-technology in the third quarter of 2016, free of charge to its clients.

“However, to date, there is still a low figure of card pick-ups from the branches, which means a large number of clients are still using the magnetic stripe-only ATM debit cards,” it said.

“For corporate or payroll clients, BDO will make the EMV-chip cards available at their respective HR offices by December 31, 2017,” it said.

BDO said its almost 4,000 ATMs nationwide have been made EMV-certified.

“BDO was the first bank in the industry to fully retrofit its ATM network to allow EMV-chip card transactions,” it added.