Some 92 incidents of crooks cloning debit and credit cards issued by Citibank Pvt. Ltd. occurred between January 2008 to December 2010, tops among India’s card issuers, the country’s finance minister told the country’s Parliament on Mar. 4.
The card counterfeiting resulted in fraud losses totaling 18.9 million rupees (US$420,608 or 301,150 euros), Pranab Mukherjee said.
“One case each of such fraud was also reported for Syndicate Bank Ltd., Standard Chartered Bank India Pvt. Ltd., Punjab National Bank Ltd. and Canara Bank Ltd.,” he said. Those cases resulted in a combined fraud-related loss of 2.3 million rupees during the same period, Mukherjee said.
Citibank officials in India did not respond to PaymentsSource requests for comment on why its was subjected to the counterfeiting fraud more so than other issuers.
The Indian government is taking steps to fight card counterfeiting, including possibly converting the country’s card technology to smart chips from magnetic stripes, as recommended by a Reserve Bank of India panel in January, the minister added.
The central bank, in consultation with card-issuing institutions, also is evaluating how compensate cardholders that lost money from counterfeit fraud, he said.
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