After plenty of celebrations and parties, the new year has finally started. However, it brings with it bad news for a large number of ATM, credit and debit card users across Pakistan.
Starting today, the magnetic strip cards will not work, as per the SBP notification, which directed all banks to shift to Europay Mastercard Visa (EMV) compliant cards or Chip-based cards before the start of the new year.
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Collecting the new cards and activating them has been quite a hassle for customers who have had to endure poor customer services. A lot of people have reported having waited for hours before they could connect with the concerned customer service representatives. Others were told to hold on-call, thanks to a massive backlog of cards in backend systems.
Even those looking for answers to their general queries are being made to wait days to get their issues addressed.
The SBP is yet to extend the deadline, which would mean longer queues at bank branches for withdrawing money and more delays while trying to activate cards. However, SBP is not to blame here, considering the watchdog had issued the circular in November 2018, directing all banks to make the switch by 30th June 2019. They were notified even before that. The deadline was later extended to 31st December 2019.
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The central bank had also issued similar ‘Regulations for Payment Card Security’ in 2016, directing the banks to issue EMV compliant cards from 30th June 2018 and implement PIN and Chip infrastructure by 31st December 2018, however, it wasn’t achieved.
HBL hacking incident, which caused losses worth Rs 10.2 million, later pressurized the SBP to clamp down on such incidents, which is why it reiterated its resolve to switch to PIN and Chip cards.
Have you activated your payment cards? Let us know the issues you faced in the comments section below.
I TRIED TO ACTIVATE MY STANDARD CHARTED AND BANK ALHABIB DEBIT CARDS BUT GAVE UP THE IDEA AS I HAD TO WAIT FOR ALMOST FIFTEEN MINUTES AND MORE FOR BOTH CARDS WASTING TIME AND MONEY USING MY CELL PHONE.
You would still have to go through the same process! #SayNoToAllCaps
It also appears to have affected the shift key on your keyboard
Dude, you win!
Yes, it definitely appears as such.
Stop yelling ffs
Me & my all family members are “Bank-Al-Habib” customers. We did NOT face even a single problem at any stage. Infact their Staff made it a pleasant experience to upgrade our cards. Good work must be appreciated.
seems like u and ur family members work in Bank Al Habib, to me its one of the most pathetic banks
I am Nation Bank Customer, i do not have money in my account but when i need money i can withdraw cash any time with no limit, they never ask me to return their money (inj tay for inj he sahee)
Never seen such a useless Customer care centre like that of HBL and Alfalah.You have to wait for hours to talk to their representative
I’m Meezan bank’s customer and at this moment I find that my decision to choose Meezan was correct.
Meezan bank itself contacted me,Replace my old card with chip based card.
Even I activated new card on just Meezan’s Atm without helpline hestle.
Thanks to Meezan bank
Poor service representative response at askari bank branch at f10 markaz. As my wife applied for transfer of her card from multan branch almost 1 month back. Last wk when we visited f10 branch being in close proximity of my present house the response of operation manger was so cold and highly unprofessional. He said we did our part by fwd your request now u should contact multan br to send it across . Simply disappointing attitude of askari bank. Poor show .
Emv chip based card is sucked it’s not even working to buy domain online it’s declined
That means u suck
Sajawal Bhai any update on this matter??
I talked to Faysal bank representative, he said this issue for credit cards only, not for debit cards.
Standard Chartered replaced credit and debit cards promptly. Activation is flawless and takes a few minutes
All the banks are trying best. The issues are mainly occuring from the third party vendors i.e. courier which is not working well.
I was sent 4 times my card from Bank Alfalah but TCS has returned it all the times saying incomplete address while I am having the parcels on this address since long.
So the Banks Should not be blamed only.
Thanks!
HBL and Jazz Cash have replaced my cards themselves while Allied and Meezan Banks are still frozen asleep.
I am meezan bank customer from 1 year, their cards are 3d secure and chip based.
Thank you for telling, I did not know. However, my complaint, though in a different direction, remains more or less the same.
I applied for a replacement of my card last Thursday and was told it’d take three to four days. On Friday, I received a message saying three days. On Wednesday I checked with my branch but it had not been received. Thursday gone, no news. Now you do the math and see how annoyed I am.