QIB Makes Cards International Spending More Secure
21/07/2014, Doha, Qatar
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), Qatar’s leading and safest Islamic Bank, has brought in a new level of security to protect customers’ credit and debit cards from fraudulent transactions when travelling abroad.
All of QIB’s credit and debit cards carry both a magnetic strip on the reverse side, and an electronic micro-chip embedded in their surface. Both contain information specific to the customer and his account; but because of the features provided by the microchip and the way they work, chip feature in the card is the most secure solution available to prevent duplication of cards or of skimming data from them.
Most Merchants in the USA & some in Asia Pacific are still reliant on the magnetic strip to process their card transactions whereas most European, Africa, Middle East & Latin America countries are using Chip based processing. Overall, cards transactions will not be block in most countries worldwide.
A chip based card, on the other hand, has a built-in microchip which performs the same transactions as that of a magnetic strip but in a much more secure way. Chip card technology offers increased security because it reduces the risk of card skimming. Also chip credit card transactions are authenticated by a personal identification number (PIN) instead of a signature, which adds an additional level of security and speeds up the transaction time at merchant terminals; and in addition, the chip card must remain inserted in the POS terminal until the transaction is completed.
In Qatar all transactions are chip and pin transactions. As part of QIB’s commitment to enhance the security of electronic payment cards, all magnetic strip transactions will now be permanently blocked outside Qatar on both debit and credit Cards with immediate effect. Only chip based transactions will be allowed, unless customers specifically ask for the magnetic strips on their cards to be activated while they travel abroad. Customers will not be able to use the magnetic strip feature unless they confirm to the Bank prior to their travel, the destination and period in order to activate their card accordingly.
Should a customer wish to activate the use of the magnetic strip outside Qatar, he needs first to call 44448444 and specify all the countries to which he intends to travel and plans to use his QIB cards, together with his travel dates, both departure and return to Qatar, and also specify if he wants to activate the magnetic strip for Point-of-sale, or Automatic Teller Machines, or for both. Once all details have been provided, magnetic strip transactions will be activated for the period of travel only. The cards will once again be automatically blocked in the system post the expiry of the above mentioned travel period.
Mr. D. Anand, General Manager of QIB’s Personal Banking Group, explained that “this is another layer of security that QIB is implementing to provide a safer banking experience. Our aim is to protect our clients’ information and card details when they travel as we have noticed that all fraudulent cases are happening outside the country and are heavily relying on the magnetic strip feature in order to access the customers’ data”.
“This security measure will only affect a small percentage of the transactions worldwide that are being processed in countries where they are still using the magnetic strip, like the USA for example”, Mr. Anand added.
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