BDO to disable magnetic stripe cards come Feb. 1 amid shift to EMV

MANILA, Philippines — BDO Unibank Inc. on Thursday announced it will be deactivating old automated teller machine cards come February 1 after the bank completed the initial shift to the Europay Mastercard Visa technology ahead of the deadline set by the central bank.

“The bank has been advising clients to get their EMV Debit Card since it became available in the third quarter of 2016. For those who still have the magnetic stripe card, they are encouraged to have it replaced at the branches on or before January 31,” the country’s largest bank said in a statement.

EMV is a global security standard for payment transactions that is more secure than a magnetic-stripe card.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas had issued a memorandum giving banks until June 30, 2018 to fully comply with the shift to the mandatory EMV technology.  

To recall, the Sy-led listed bank detected fraudulent transactions of ATM cards last June 16, prompting it to deactivate compromised ATMs and affected ATM cards.

BDO president and chief executive officer Nestor Tan earlier confirmed the bank has already paid its clients, but declined to give the specific amount.

In October last year, BDO’s nearly 4,000 ATMs nationwide became EMV-certified, making it the first bank to fully retrofit its ATM network to allow EMV chip debit card transactions.

Accompanying this change are the upgrade of ATMs and point-of-sale terminals into EMV and the eventual deactivation of the magnetic stripe-only debit card.

READ: BDO urges accountholders to upgrade to EMV cards

BDO has one of the largest distribution networks, with more than 1,100 operating branches and over 3,800 ATMs nationwide. It also has a full-service branch in Hong Kong as well as 26 overseas remittance and representative offices in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East.