Why you must change your debit and credit cards by December 31?

have older magnetic stripe -only cards to replace it with newer EMV(Europay- MasterCard- Visa) chip based cards.

The EMV chip based credit and debit cards are in use from 2016. After 31st January 2016 only this type of cards were issued by the banks.

You must be thinking that why should we take such pain to replace our existing credit and debit cards. Believe me, RBI is doing this for our benefit only. The EMV chip based credit and debit cards are safer than older magnetic stripe-only cards. Because it is very easy to clone those existing magnetic stripe-only cards.

As the debit and credit card piracy leads to fraud and loss of money from the customer's account, the RBI took some solid measures to curb the malpractices.. According to RBI it is impossible to clone this new EMV chip based credit and debit cards.

This new EMV chip based credit and debit cards are also known as PIN (personal Identification Number) cards. These cards are having higher data encryption and improved storage technology.

The older magnetic cards had all the information of the customers on the backside of the card.
But in EVM chip based cards, the customer's details are stored in dynamic format. So it is not easy to make clone of these cards. The RBI's notice is applicable even to the international cards.

In order to change the older cards with new one , you can approach your bank officials and they will help you in replacing it free of cost. The bank is bearing the cost of the exchange.
It is our duty to safeguard our hard earned money.