Mumbai, January 16: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a new norm to improve the user convenience and increase the security of card transactions. This comes on the back of the growth spurt seen in the volume and value of card transactions witnessed in the last few years. RBI has asked banks to allow only domestic card transactions at ATMs and Point of Sale (PoS) devices within India during the time of issue or re-issue of physical as well as virtual cards.
For the existing cards, issuers should take a decision as per their risk perception, whether to disable the card or not present transactions. “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,” noted RBI in its circular.
When it comes to international transactions and online transactions, needs to separately set up their services on the card. Additionally, the issuers are also required to provide facility to the cardholders such as facility to switch on/off and set or modify transactions limits for all types of transactions. This includes domestic and international done at POS, ATMs, online transactions, contactless transactions and so on.
The above-mentioned facility would be provided 24/7 basis through multiple channels such as mobile application, internet banking, ATMs, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) which are offered at branches. Also, whenever the cardholders opt for any above changes or transactions alerts, information, status through SMS or email should be sent mentioning the change in the status of the card. These directions by RBI would come in effect from 16 March, 2020.