Banks in Nigeria have said that the present magnetic stripe cards would stop to work soon and urged their customers to migrate to the chip and pin, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.
This is coming on the heels of the December 31, deadline given by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the discontinuance of the old card.
Some of the banks have already sent short message services (SMS) notifications to customers to get the newly introduced EMV compliant cards as the magnetic stripe cards would not be valid after certain period of time. The expiration date differs from bank to bank but all would cease to work on December 31.
A particular SMS from one of the banks read “Dear customer, get a new Verve Chip Debit Card at any of our branches. Current magnetic stripe cards will not be valid after 31 October 2009.”
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that to migrate from the magnetic stripe card to the chip and pin platform, customers are required to pay the sum of N500 to N750, depending on the bank.
One of the banks explained that “by commencing the migration from magnetic stripe cards to chip and EMV technology now, it was already working to make customers have confidence in e-payment and card based transactions ahead of the CBN deadline.”
EMV is a standard for interoperation of IC cards “Chip cards” and IC capable point of sale (PoS) terminals and automated teller machines (ATMs) for authenticating credit and debit card payments.
The chip and pin card maximizes e-payment security through the EMV technology, reduces fraud, possesses bigger storage capacity with the ability to manage a growing number of transactions.
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