Credit card transactions to go safer and complex


New Delhi: So as to provide more security to the phone banking users, The Reserve Bank of India has come out with guidelines stating an additional password which would be asked by the banks while a credit card customer makes any transaction. RBI plans to put this step into practice right from the New Year. As mentioned in the guidelines, all the banks need to turn down any telephonic banking transactions including the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service as they do not have a One-Time password (OTP). For a period of two hours the One-Time password would remain in effect and its validity would be for a single use. In order to make any IVR transaction, it would be mandatory to generate a separate OTP. This step taken should act as a protection against the ongoing credit card frauds. This move would make any lost or stolen credit card useless for the thief. A similar strategy has been followed by the banks for the Internet banking transactions. The banks had to compulsorily provide their customers with an additional security layer for all the credit card transactions made over internet at the beginning of 2010. On one hand, where the other banks are in the process of communicating to their customers to attain OTP for their phone banking transactions, on the other hand, Citibank and HDFC bank have already made the required amendments. Once the new security layer has been laid down, in order to conduct a credit card transaction over phone, the customers would require at least five numbers which would include the 16-digit card number, card expiry date, Card Verification Value number, mobile number and the OTP.