From today, punching your debit card PIN for your shopping is mandatory - mere swiping it will not suffice.
For now, the Personal Identification Number (PIN) requirement is only for debit cards. As for credit cards, this has been made mandatory for international transactions including on the internet. In cases of international transactions and on internet, users will have to replace their existing credit cards with the EMV (Europay, Master card and Visa) chip card and get a PIN.
The usage will be as follows: first, merchants will swipe the cards at a PIN enabled PoS terminal and punch in the transaction amount. That will be followed by customers entering their PINs to complete the transaction.
The mandatory PIN punching is part of the RBI guidelines. The RBI had in June this year floated the guidelines but extended them till November 30 as banks needed more time to gear up for the new usage.
The RBI took step following a spate of ATM card frauds. In view of increasing frauds, an RBI working group had come up with three solutions which also included EVM chip card but the PIN punching was adopted because it does not pose any additional cost on consumers, a source familiar to the development, said.
Banking back-end sources pointed out that this was also done because of skimming indulged in by unscrupulous retailers.