BSP monitors migration to chip-enabled cards

CEBU, Philippines - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is set to monitor the progress of the banks' migration to Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) chip-enabled cards, which is due by January 2017.

BSP released Memorandum 2016-13, requiring all financial institutions it supervises to submit a status report of their EMV migration activities and compliance.

The submission of the reports will be done on a quarterly basis, starting yesterday, September 30, until full compliance, within 15 banking days from end of reference quarter.

Last November 2014, the Bangko Sentral, through Circular 859, required all supervised financial entities with debit and credit card issuing and acquiring functions to migrate their entire payment card network to the more secure EMV technology by January 1, 2017.

The EMV electronic chip technology is designed to give tighter security and prevent ATM card fraud incidents.

BSP's mandate to adopt the EMV technology is aimed at strengthening the country's electronic payments system and protect consumers from ATM theft.

EMV is a global standard for chip-based credit and debit transactions and is deemed more secured than the magnetic stripe technology which is currently used in most bank-issued cards in the country.

The chip-enabled cards also carry additional security layers and can carry a bigger amount of data than the magnetic strip.

The EMV chip will be installed in bank-issued cards.

The chip technology is protected by various security measures unlike magnetic stripe whose data can be copied through inserting a device into the ATM.

It was in August 2013 when the Monetary Board approved an enhanced Information Technology Risk Management (ITRM) framework that requires Philippine banks to eventually shift to EMV technology. (FREEMAN)