Your Debit/Credit Card Won’t Work After December 31 – This Is What You Should Do!

Come December 31, 2018, and most of the existing debit and credit cards will stop working. Will your debit or credit card work?

Keep on reading to find out more!

RBI’s Notification On Existing Debit/Credit Cards

In 2015, RBI had issued a notification under 18 read with Section 10(2) of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (Act 51 of 2007), which covered all existing debit and credit card holders.

As per the notification, RBI has stated that all debit and credit cards have to be chip based, which are called EMV Debit/Credit Card. Also known as ‘Chip n Pin’ cards.

Which Debit Cards/Credit Cards Needs To Be Changed?

Majority of debit and credit cards being used today are magnetic stripe only cards, which process greater security risks.

In case your existing debit and credit cards are magnetic stripe only cards, then they will be useless after December 31st.

Every magnetic stripe only credit/debit cards need to be changed to EMV Chip based cards before December 31st, 2018.

Has Banks Started Informing Users?

Yes. Since last few days, bank customers must have received SMS from their respective banks, suggesting them to replace their existing magnetic stripe only cards with EMV based cards.

Most of them must have deleted the SMS, assuming it to be spam. But this time, it’s not.

How Much Charge For Replacing The Cards?

Several banks have announced that they will replace the magnetic stripe cards with EMV based cards for free.

All you need to do is, visit your nearest bank branch, and request for the replacement.

What Is So Special About EMV Cards?

EMV cards are globally accepted as a standard for authenticating transactions using a chip, which holds the vital information related to your account.

EMV is a global technical body that facilitates the worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions, and its members are American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa.

In the current magnetic stripe based cards, the vital information is stored in the single magnetic stripe, which makes its cloning easier. Fraudsters can easily close the magnetic stripe, as the information is static.

However, EMV based cards are not only secured by a chip which is dynamic information, but also a password which needs to be entered every time for authenticating a transaction.

These two major features make EMV based more secured, and this is the reason RBI wants every card to be EMV.

Earlier, September 1, 2015 was the deadline, which has been extended gradually to December 31, 2018 now.

We will keep you updated, as we receive more information.