ATM booth scams detected again in the city, reported the national dailies on Thursday raising question what safety measures banks and the banking sector regulators have taken up so far to protect depositors’ money and they being cheated by fraudsters in absence of their knowledge. Reports said Rapid Action Battalion [RAB] on Wednesday detained a Chinese national from an ATM booth in Dhaka city center for his involvement in lifting cash from ATM booths. It appears that syndicated skimming had occurred in city ATM booths and despite similar incidents involving at least four banks in February this year in which fraudsters lifted huge cash.
The disclosure that a Chinese man has been caught red handed with Tk 66,000 is a huge security break and the simultaneous revelation that abnormal withdrawals were also reported in more ATM units in the city is more alarming. It appears that Bangladesh Bank and the banking sector as a whole is busy now with US$ 81 million money heist of the Central Bank. Meanwhile, ATM fraudsters may have reorganized their thieves and network to take away money from banks’ ATM booths located at roadside and other city corners. The cyber attacks have become the biggest challenge to the safety of bank deposits and their ATMs to cater to the need of the customers round the clock.
We know that Bangladesh Bank has instructed all commercial banks to install anti-skimming devices at their ATM booths to prevent any more fraud. The most unpalatable fact is that many banks have not so far installed the safety chips at their teller machines and even did not care to send any updated report on installation of anti-skimming devices as the cutting date has passed by on March 13. Bangladesh Bank’s advice on replacing their magnetic stripe cards with chip-embedded cards is crucial for protecting automated teller machines from cyber thieves. We must say that the non-compliance by banks must be treated as criminal offence and the concerned bank management must be held accountable for their failure. We can’t leave the cash machines unprotected at street corners when fraudsters are capable to use state of the art cyber devices to break in the ATM booths and go away with cash.
It is really a disappointment that in every sector there is negligence and inefficiency.
