New Delhi, January 29: If you are an account holder of Post Office Savings Bank (POSB), you are advised to replace your magnetic strip ATM cards with a new EMV chip-based ATM cards at the post office where your savings account stands.
The Department of Posts (DoP) has announced to block all active magnetic strip ATM cards from 31 January, 2020. It has also asked POSB customers to update their mobile numbers by visiting respective home branch offices to avoid blocking of their cards.
DoP had issued magnetic strip ATM cards for public use since 2017. It maintains that the card number starting with 607245 are prone to risk of unauthorised use and fraudulent withdrawals. Hence, in a bid to eradicate these security threats, new EMV chip-based ATM cards are being issued to the POSB customers, it noted.
One of the main differences between the two cards is that with magnetic stripe cards, transactions can be made with just a swipe at PoS, while transaction with EMV chip-based ATM cards require to enter your ATM PIN code as well. Meanwhile, all other banks have already replaced their magnetic ATM cards with EMV chip cards as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.
India Post currently has 18 crore small savings account holders. Although the postal service is its main area of focus, it has been offering savings and deposits schemes since 1873. It currently has 1,55,531 branches (versus 152,865 bank branches) spread across the country. Of this, 1,30,000 post offices are offering banking services in rural areas.
