Banks step up vigil against card frauds

Even as the use of plastic money increases, the number of frauds is also on the rise. Over the past three years, the number of credit card frauds has gone up by 80 per cent. Recognising this, the Reserve Bank of India and banks are taking steps to educate customers about frauds that may happen via Internet and while using credit cards. The total number of frauds has gone up from 12,374 in 2005 to 21,687 in 2006, and 22,280 in 2007. In the case of credit card frauds, the number has gone up from 8,789 in 2005 to 17,268 in 2006, and 17,294 in 2007. One reason for this is credit card transactions are growing much faster than other transactions, said Mr Hemant Kaul, President, Retail Banking, Axis Bank. Axis Bank recently launched ‘Visa Platinum Credit Card’ based on the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) standard, with an embedded chip to store the cardholder’s information in encrypted format to provide security against possible misuse in the form of counterfeiting and skimming. The chip sends a secret message to authenticate every transaction, making it difficult for a fraudster to steal the information. ICICI Bank takes precautionary steps like sending an SMS to customers on every transaction made on their credit card.