The National Payment Corporation of India or NPCIL has said 32 lakh debit cards across 19 banks could have been compromised on account of a fraud.
The total amount involved in the fraud could be as high as 1.3 crore rupees. Govt has sought a report from RBI and NPCIL.
Hit by an unprecedented ATM security breach, several public and private sector banks have recalled or blocked over 32 lakh debit cards to safeguard their customers from any financial fraud, while the government has sought from them details of all necessary safety measures.
Concerned over the issue, the Finance Ministry has sought details from banks as also the additional steps that need to be taken to avert such incidents.
Indian banks have recalled over 32 lakh debit cut ATM cards.
Finance ministry has sought a report from the RBI and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCIL) in the debit cards compromise issue.
Bank have recalled cards include those that have been replaced as a ‘pre-emptive measure’, while in many cases the customers have been asked to mandatorily change the PIN and other security numbers to resume using the blocked cards.
SBI is said to have re-called around 6 lakh cards, while others like Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Central Bank and Andhra Bank have also replaced debit cards of several customers as a pre-emptive measure.
Among the private sector players, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Yes Bank have asked customers to change their ATM PINs.
The suspected security breach happened through a malware in the systems of Hitachi Payments Services, which serves ATM network of Yes Bank.
Hitachi provides payment services through ATM services, point of sale services (POS), emerging payments services and banking channel products like cash recycling ATMs and auto passbook entry machines.
Hitachi Payment Services, however, maintained its system was not compromised, citing interim report by an external audit agency appointed by it.
