BSP gives no extension for EMV shifting

BangkoSentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) mandated and issued a Memorandum 2017-019 in order to fully synchronized the banks and other financial institutions in shifting the payment system network to EMV Technology because of the banks’ non-compliance to the shifting, this will be fully implemented by June 30 this year.

June 30, 2018 is the deadline that has been given by BSP to the Financial Instutions to comply, they said that they gave enough time for the shifting to so they will not give any extension on the deadline. Banks that may fail to comply to this mandatory shifting, BSP said that they need to set up funds for probable frauds that may occur.

There has been a massive issues or data breaches from the banks that results to stolen of credit cards. So, by complying to this technology, it will help the banks and the credit card holders to reduce and eventually eliminate fully the stealing of cards and any credit card frauds that will also affect the online credit card payments that is expected to overstep or surpass the frauds that we are experiencing through these years.

BSP believes that by using EMV Cards, it reduces the card skimming issues and counterfeiting of credit cardholders as it provides a better security than the magnetic stripe card that we have today.

The BDO Unibank, one of the country's largest bank has been already complied to the shifting and other several banks have been completed the shifting as well and already deactivate the use of magnetic stripe ATMs.

“To raise awareness as well as manage customers’ expectations on the replacement of their payment cards, BSP-supervised financial institutions should intensify their public awareness programs leveraging on all available communication channels. The information should clearly indicate the date when EMV cards are available and ready for pick-up by their clients as well as the related procedures for replacing magnetic stripe cards and distributing EMV-compliant cards. BSP-supervised financial institutions are further expected to develop strategies to entice or force clients to replace their old cards with EMV cards (in effect, deactivation of existing cards by certain date, offering of rewards/freebies, and/or liability shift for skimming incidents),” the BSP insisted based on the Inquirer’s article.