SBI Strengthens Security System On ATM Withdrawals

Mumbai, December 30: As ATM frauds are on rise banks are gearing up for the safety of their customers. With government also in digital push mode, the probabilities of such frauds are going to rise and banks will have to be more cautious going ahead. In this backdrop, to ensure safety of its customers regarding ATM withdrawals, nation’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) has announced the launch of OTP (One-time Password) Based ATM withdrawals above Rs. 10,000.

SBI is introducing the OTP based cash withdrawal system across all its 58,500 SBI ATMs with effect from January1, 2020 which would be functional between 8 pm to 8 am. The bank has requested all its customers to update their mobile numbers in order to avoid any discomfort with respect to prospective cash withdrawals for the amount exceeding Rs 10,000, that too in the late evening, when most emergency withdrawals occur.

This is an important development also from the point of view of reach, as SBI has the highest reach and spread of ATMs in the country. You’ll find at least one SBI ATM working in an area, where no other Bank’s presence can be thought of.

During 2018-19, 179 ATM fraud cases (valued more than Rs 1 lakh), were reported in Delhi which was the second highest in the country after 233 in Maharashtra. In recent months, cloning of cards has been on the rise with foreign nationals seen to be involved n a large number of cases. Across the country, the number of frauds that were reported rose to 980 in 2018-19, compared to 911 in the previous year.
SBI in a statement said, customers at SBI ATMs, along with Debit Card PIN (personal identification number) will also have to put OTP generated on their mobile numbers registered with the bank while withdrawing cash above Rs 10,000. With this facility SBI has added another layer of safety and security in all its ATMs to minimize the number of unauthorized ATM transactions. This additional factor of authentication for ATM cash withdrawals will protect SBI debit card holders from the risk of skimming, card cloning, etc.

The OTP is a system-generated numeric string of characters that authenticates the user for a single transaction. However, this facility will not be applicable for cash withdrawals at non SBI ATMs because this functionality has not been developed in National Financial Switch (NFS), SBI said.

Analysts said, other public sector banks (PSBs) are expected to follow suit as SBI, country’s largest commercial bank in terms of assets, deposits, branches, customers and employees sets policy benchmarks for other PSBs.