Business Wire India
- There is no magnetic strip on these cards, making them skim or clone proof
- The innovation is in line with Prime Minister Modi’s call for more security in FinTech transactions
- Boost for card adoption in the post-Covid world, with digital transactions rising to unprecedented levels
OneBanc Technologies, an AI-driven neo banking start-up, today said it has signed an agreement with Visa, the global leader in digital payments, to issue India’s first credit and debit cards without the magnetic strip. The innovation makes these cards impossible to clone or skim and the potential for financial loss is limited if they are lost or stolen.
This innovation is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on increased security in digital financial transactions. As mandated by the Reserve Bank of India, all cards in India were upgraded with EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) chips from January 1, 2019. Since then, more than 99% of card transactions in India have come to rely on the EMV chip. But magnetic strips still reside on cards with sensitive information stored in them which can be easily skimmed at compromised ATMs or POS terminals.
The cards issued by OneBanc also do away with the card number, expiry date, and CVV, which are never used during in-person transactions. These details are used for online transactions and can be displayed securely and digitally after authentication.
“India is moving towards becoming a cashless economy and credit penetration is increasing rapidly. As a neo bank, our focus on the experience is critical, while ensuring the best-in-class security and privacy of customer data. Now that the payments have evolved, it is about time magnetic strips and numbers on cards became extinct,” said Vibhore Goyal, Founder and CEO, OneBanc. “Along with Visa, OneBanc now partners with two out of the three largest card networks in India. This is a great vote of confidence for our vision of providing a personalized and secure banking experience.”
Studies show 81% of working Indians worry about the security of their card-based transactions. The European Payments Council’s Threats and Frauds Trends report for 2021 says 86% of credit card data thefts were traced to magnetic strip cloning or skimming. In the last two years, industry reports estimate, a staggering 6.2 million credit card details were compromised online and $2.9 billion were stolen in India alone. Improving security of these instruments is the most important factor to increase adoption.
“With the rapid expansion of home-grown enterprises in India, there is an increasing need for unified payroll & expense management solutions, especially for companies now entering the corporate credit ecosystem. In line with this, we are delighted to partner with OneBanc on an innovative credit card for the new Indian corporate employee. This will not just give them the confidence to transact digitally with the added security features of a numberless card, but also help build a credit profile without any behavioural change,” said Sujai Raina, Visa’s Vice-President and Head of Business Development for India.
