Arnima
New Delhi: The State Bank of India (SBI) has announced that it will withdraw its magnetic debit cards from January 1, 2020 making all magnetic debit cards from the bank inoperational. The SBI said that this step has been taken under the Reserve Bank of India guidelines that makes it compulsory for all Indian banks to replace all debit cards through chip based EVM cards.
The bank has informed its customers through a tweet asking them to replace the existing SBI debit cards through EVM cards. "This exercise is being practiced to meet the international digital payment standards," the SBI said. The magnetic SBI cards will be deactivated from January 1, 2020 irrespective of their expiry dates.
Bank customers have been asked to visit their SBI home branch and put a request to change their debit cards into EVM cards while customers who have net banking access through onlinesbi.com, they can put application for this online also. The online application could be filed through sbi.co.in as well.
"Apply now to change your Magnetic Stripe Debit Cards to the more secure EMV Chip and PIN-based SBI Debit card at your home branch by 31st December 2019. Safeguard yourself with guaranteed authenticity, greater security for online payments and added security against fraud," the bank tweeted to inform its customers. Worth mentioning that the SBI has already started deactivating the SBI cards of those accounts in which PAN or Form 60 is not updated.
The decision has been taken under the RBI instructions that the SBI has to replace all magnetic debit cards with EVM and PIN-based SBI cards by December 31, 2019. These instructions came, keeping in view the continuing online frauds through magnetic stripe cards.
