Millions of debit and credit cards across India will be disabled from carrying any online transactions after March 16th.
What exactly is happening here? And how to stop it?
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Why Your Debit/Credit Card Can Be Disabled?
As per Reserve Bank of India (RBI’s) latest rules, all debit and credit cards that have never been used for any online transaction (or contactless transactions) will be disabled after March 16th.
This directive has been issued under Section 10(2) of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
What Does Being Disabled Mean?
Being disabled here means that your debit and credit can’t be used for any online transaction (also called contactless transaction) after March 16th.
This will only happen if your debit or credit card has not been used for any online transaction till March 16th.
The notification from RBI says: “For existing cards, issuers may take a decision, based on their risk perception, whether to disable the card not present (domestic and international) transactions, card-present (international) transactions and contactless transaction rights. Existing cards which have never been used for online (card not present) /international /contactless transactions shall be mandatorily disabled for this purpose. The directions are issued under Section 10(2) of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007,”
How To Avoid This?
The only way to avoid your debit/credit card being disabled is that you carry any online transaction using your debit and credit cards before March 16th.
Note here, that only online transactions will be counted here, not those transactions where the debit/credit card is physically present.
Examples Of Contactless Transactions
Examples of contactless or online transactions are: Buying groceries online, using the debit/credit card to add funds to your mobile wallets (like Paytm, PhonePe etc), shopping online, booking train tickets, movie tickets, donating to charity via debit card/credit card etc.
Debit/credit card transactions such as paying at a merchant’s outlet, buying petrol/diesel etc won’t be counted.
Why Is This Happening?
This has been done to protect the cards from misuse, and to encourage everyone to carry online or contactless transactions.
There are still millions of debit card/credit card users who haven’t ever used their cards for any online transactions.
This move will filter out those users, and disable their cards from any online usage.
But they can use their cards for paying at merchant outlets, with their physical usage.
We will keep you updated, as more details come in.
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