New EMV-Enabled Debit Cards From Today: Are Your Old Magnetic-Stripe Ones Still Working

Are your current magnetic-stripe debit cards working. Do check now as the New Year may require you to replace your current-gen debit cards with new EMV chip incorporated cards. For starters, an order from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had mandated affiliated banks to assist customers with EMV-enabled and PIN-enabled debit cards to offer better security and elimination of card skimming leading to theoretically better privacy.

Your old debit cards come with magnetic stripes which have been found (by experts) to be relatively easy for criminals to indulge in card cloning and other ATM-related frauds. The new EMV chip theoretically prevents cloning, via their embedded chips that authenticate data dynamically compared to static data evaluation by the now older magnetic swipe mechanism.

In case you are still in possession of the older debit/credit cards, you should receive the newer EMV cards automatically from your bank branches; in case you are still yet to receive newer cards, do obtain these from your bank as beginning from the first day of January 2019 it could well only be the newer EMV chip cards that function; thereby eliminating the usage on their older counterparts.

As far as the RBI directive concerning the replacement of magnetic stripe cards is concerned, this was supposed to have taken place before the onset of 2019; which is by December 31 2018. Hence, you could have the old cards swapped for new ones. Whilst carrying out transactions at places other than ATMs you should remember that the new cards would ask for you to key in your pin number mandatorily for all transactions. Do memorize your PIN number; never write these anywhere. Hence, do check at ATMs with both your new and old debit cards; share thoughts/insights on whether you were able to operate these. In case you do not possess a valid bank account, you could apply for a Savings Bank (SB) account through the Jan Dhan scheme initiated by the Government of India.

Also Read: SBI Customers Beware! Your Debit Card May Not Work After December 31, But Here's The Solution

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