SBP issues directives to banks on security breach of payment cards

KARACHI: As a result of security breach of payment cards of one of the banks in Pakistan yesterday and their unauthorized use on different delivery channels i.e. at ATMs and POS in different countries, the bank has temporarily restricted usage of its cards for overseas transactions, SBP said in a statement here on Sunday.

The State Bank has instructed the bank to take all necessary measures to trace the vulnerability and fix it immediately.

The affected bank has also been instructed to issue advisory on precautionary measures to be taken by customers.

Further, State Bank has also issued directives to all banks to foster arrangements to ensure security of all payment cards in the country and monitor on real-time basis usage activity of their cards, especially overseas transactions.

SBP will continue to assess these developments in coordination with banks and take further measures, if required. The following directives have been issued to all banks in Pakistan to ensure that:

Security measures on all IT systems including those related to card operations are continuously updated to meet any challenges in future.
Resources are deployed to ensure the 24/7 real time monitoring of card operations related systems and transactions.
Immediately coordinate with all the payment schemes, switch operators and media service providers the banks are integrated with to identify any malicious activity of suspicious transactions.

In case of any unusual incidents, banks are advised to immediately report to SBP.