New security norms for credit, debit cards puts several in fix

New guidelines to further secure credit and debit card payments left several cardholders in a fix, as many of them were not able to make online or contactless transactions.

The reason for such instances, industry insiders pointed out, was due to non-compliance of the guidelines which came into force on Thursday.

Accordingly, these guidlines were implemented from October 1.

The norms mandated an online consent from customers, whose cards had never been used to make online or contactless payments to be able to make such transactions from October 1 onwards.

In an attempt to make digital payments using debit cards and credit cards more secure, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had issued several new guidelines.

According to the new guidelines, card users will now be able to register preferences, opt-in or opt-out of services, spend limits among others — for international transactions, online transactions as well as contactless card transactions.

Hence, debit and credit cards issued by banks will only be enabled for domestic transactions at ATMs and point of sale (PoS) terminals. Banks can deactivate current cards and reissue them based on risk perception.

The central bank has asked all banks and other card-issuing companies to disable online payment services of all debit and credit cards that have never been used for online or contactless transactions both in India and internationally.

If the cardholder wants to use the credit or debit card outside India, then they need to ask the bank to enable international transactions..