NEWS report, in a national daily on Friday said that around 10 million bank clients in Bangladesh who use ATM cards or plastic money known as Visa or Master cards are potential victims of fraudsters. The task is easy because such cards use magnetic stripe, which is vulnerable to skimming devices and can copy cardholders’ information to create duplicate ATM and credit cards for stealing. It appears that the warning has come at a right time when cyber theft and such other electronic transfer related stealing have created a highly volatile situation in the country. The recent breaking of ATM booths of several banks in the capital and the latest bank heist in which hackers have removed over US$ 101 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account with Federal Reserves in New York only showed the ominous sign of greater danger that await the country’s banking system. There is no doubt a new threat to safety of customers deposit in banks is running high over every other risks now causing tension to bank clients and bank management as to how to make the electronic banking system foolproof. As per the report, Bangladesh Bank was pressing commercial banks to convert the magnetic stripe cards into chip cards, which is also known as EMV cards. Banks were asked at least four times to bring the change since September 2013, but only two banks have so far implemented it. What is surprising is that even Bangladesh Bank itself has failed so far to install safety standard that led to the recent bank heist. Many wonder why magnetic stripe is vulnerable. This is because the backside of magnetic card stores the cardholder’s account information that can be easily copied. Most fraudulent practice originate at different shops where buyers use their cards at some point of time. One foreign bank recently received 40 reports of misuse of credit cards by fraudsters in one boutique in a city shop. City Bank alone had to reimburse its clients around Tk 3 crore for misuse of their cards. It is an easy practice. When cashier punch the credit card at the cash registers, customer’s personal data were also secretly copied and stored and it can be easily used later to make fraudulent purchases cloning the information to a new card for theft. .Thieves were poor in the past but educated men equipped with latest cyber technology have turned overnight stealing into billion dollars business. It is the bad side of the cyber technology and the entire world is fighting to save their system. Our banking system must also do its best to install safety standard to protect clients, otherwise many clients in banks may lose their entire deposit as hackers are relentlessly at work to make illegal fortune.
