India’s Second Largest Credit Card issued – ICICI Bank just a while ago took the decision to move towards more secured EMV based Chip cards. ICICI Bank has a portfolio of 2.8 Mn Cards which includes VIA and MasterCard as well as the ones issued as Co-Branded Cards.
How are EMV Credit Cards Secure ?
As seen in the picture above, they come equipped with a Microchip [Gold in Color] which has encoded data that earlier was available on the Magentic Stripe. Only the Card Reader has the patented technology to decode the Data on the chip. Thus it is not easy to skim data of the card easily like in MagStripe Cards.
ICICI Bank is giving an option to customers to replace their existing VISA / MasterCard Credit Cards with EMV Cards immediately or wait until the Renewal date when the Bank will issue the EMV Card. The choice is in the hands of Consumer. We strongly recommend ICICI Bank Card holders to move to EMV based cards as early as possible.
How Can you ensure your Credit Card is Secure ?
I’d like to point from Real Life experience that HDFC Bank has issued EMV Cards to me but they also come with Magnetic Stripe. The onus lies on me as well to protect my data, so I make sure that the EMV Chip interface is used at the Point of Sale Terminal to carry out the transaction rather than the MagStripe which is also available on the card thus ensuring safety.
Secondly, for all Internet / e-Commerce Transactions to be carried out on Foreign Website which do not have Verified by Visa / MasterCard Securecode compulsion, I generate a temporary Card also known as NetSafe Card and use the same.
HDFC Bank now does not replace existing credit cards with EMV chip cards even at the request of the card holder. The suggest to use NetSafe card instead. I think it because chip cards are costly compared to mag stripe cards.