PSBank to deactivate non-EMV cards on Sept. 1 as it shifts to chip-enabled ones

The Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) on Wednesday announced that it would deactivate all its non-Europay, Mastercard, Visa (EMV) cards starting September to provide clients with more secured services.

"All non-EMV PSBank cards can no longer be used beginning September 1, 2017. With this, it is encouraging all its clients to replace their non-EMV cards now at any PSBank branch. If it is your first time to replace your card, it is free of charge," the PSBank said in a statement.

"The PSBank EMV chip-enabled cards have enhanced features for verifying transactions made on the card, therefore minimizing cases of card-present fraud incidents and identity theft and giving cardholders the peace of mind whenever they do card transactions," the bank added.

According to the PSBank, debit and prepaid card account holders can simply visit any branch to get their EMV-enabled card. They just need to present their old card and one government-issued valid ID.

Meanwhile, for PSBank Flexi account holders, their card will be delivered via courier to their office address, while their PIN will be delivered separately via another courier to their home address, PSBank said.

In line with the issuance of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Circular No. 859 or the EMV Implementation Guidelines, the PSBank has started to issue EMV chip-enabled cards since January 3.

PSBank said all of its more than 600 automated teller machines (ATMs) are EMV-ready.

Last month, the BSP encouraged clients to replace their ATM cards with EMV-enabled cards amid the system glitch of BDO Unibank Inc. and Bank of the Philippine Islands.

"Unlike a magnetic stripe card, every time an EMV card is used for payment, the chip on the card generates a unique transaction code that cannot be used again. This feature, known as dynamic authentication, makes it difficult, if not virtually impossible, and costly for fraudsters to counterfeit EMV cards,” the BSP said in a separate primer.

The BPI earlier suspended access to its electronic channels on June 7 as an internal error caused double-posting of transactions – from April 27 to May 2 – starting June 6.

On the other hand, BDO clients reported that there were unauthorized withdrawals from their accounts. — Anna Felicia Bajo/MDM, GMA News