In a move to sort out the security breach that has reportedly affected 3.2 million debit cards which are at a risk of fraud, State Bank of India (SBI) has announced that it will first replace the debit cards of students’ account holders.
With move from the bank is based on the spending habit of users. Students are the most active users of the card-based payments than the cash based payments, especially with Diwali season around the corner.
A senior executive of State Bank of India, said,
For students, the first source of funds that their parents send them from home is the debit card. We are now giving highest priority to replace their cards at the fastest pace possible. We are confident of shipping them by the end of next week.
The bank has already initiated the process of replacing 6,00,000 debit cards that are regarded as being at risk. Along with this, another major thing to worry for the banks is Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana cards that may have been affected by the breach.
With the information provided by card network companies NPCI, Mastercard and Visa about a potential risk to some cards in India owing to a data breach, SBI has taken precautionary measures. The bank has blocked cards of certain customers identified by the networks. Commenting on this, the bank said in a statement:
This has been a proactive measure to protect our customers from any potential fraud, once we came to know of some data breach outside our Bank. We’d like to inform that SBI’ robust systems are absolutely secure and no security breach has happened. Customers can continue to use their debit cards securely. This is a cards industry incident (not only SBI).
SBI is currently in the process of issuing new cards at no cost to the customers whose cards have been blocked. The cardholders can generate the PIN through SMS/IVRS/internet banking without visiting the branch. Alternatively, the cardholders can collect the physical PIN mailer from their home branch.
