BDO urges clients to shift to EMV cards

MANILA, Philippines — BDO Unibank Inc. is urging its retail clients to immediately make the shift to EMV chip-enabled ATM debit cards as the country’s largest lender noted a still low turnout.

In a statement yesterday, BDO said ATM cardholders who have yet to avail of the more secure EMV-embedded card should obtain it immediately from their branch of account to realize the full benefits of its technology.

BDO said it started to make the EMV chip-enabled ATM debit cards available free of charge to its clients since the third quarter of 2016.

However, BDO said there is a low figure of card pick-ups from the branches to date, which means a large number of clients are still using the magnetic stripe-only ATM debit cards.

BDO executive vice president and transaction banking head Edwin Reyes said making the shift to the EMV chip-enabled card is one way to protect clients from electronic fraud.

“It has enhanced security features, which include among others, encryption locks and keys to authenticate the card and the cardholder’s transaction, protecting card data from being compromised,” Reyes said.

“We hope our customers would embrace this significant improvement being implemented by the entire banking industry,” he added.

The Henry Sy-led bank said the EMV chip-enabled ATM debit cards complement the almost 4,000 BDO ATMs nationwide which have already been made EMV-certified by the bank.

BDO said it was the first bank in the industry to fully retrofit its ATM network to allow EMV-chip card transactions.

The regulatory requirement to shift to EMV or the Europay, MasterCard, Visa, is part of the banking industry’s move to produce a more effective way of significantly reducing counterfeit fraud, skimming, and other related attacks perpetrated in magnetic stripe payment cards.

For corporate or payroll clients, BDO said it would make the EMV chip-enabled cards available at their respective HR offices by Dec. 31, 2017.