BDO shifts to EMV cards

BDO Unibank Inc., country's largest lender, expects the shift to EMV chip-based cards to be complete by Feb. 1 for its retail clients. The bank urges its clients to shift to EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa), and replace the magnetic swipe cards. It is part of the industry's move to produce a more effective way of reducing cases of card-present fraud incidents, identity theft and other related attacks. However, BDO said there aren't much card pick-ups from the branches, which means a lot of clients are still using the magnetic stripe cards. They encourage ATM cardholders who haven't availed this yet to obtain it immediately from their branch of account to realize the full benefits of its technology. BDO has been making the EMV cards available and free of charge for its clients since the third quarter of 2016. The magnetic stripes found at the back of the old ATM debit cards will be disabled, which means clients won't be able to transact on any ATMs and point of sale (PoS) terminals. BDO made all its ATMs in the country EMV-certified last year. PoS terminals in supermarkets, restaurants, shopping malls and other establishments are also converting to EMV. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has ordered banks until June 30 this year to issue all customers with EMV chip-enabled cards or face penalties.