UAE Central Bank officials yesterday assured the public that losses incurred by banks in the recent ATM scam are minimal and precautionary measures will be taken.
"The precautionary measures include improving the quality of plastic cards, increasing the security of banking networks, especially those linked to the Internet, and the encryption of lines which link ATM machines to computer systems even within a single bank," said Saeed Al Hamiz, executive director, Banking Supervision Depart-ment, the UAE Central Bank.
Meanwhile, HSBC announced yesterday that it has now increased its daily withdrawal limit to Dh4,000 and customers can continue to have unlimited access to their funds through branch counter transactions.
"The bank deemed it appropriate to reduce the daily withdrawal limit as a precaution. Initially, we reduced it to Dh1,000 and raised it to Dh4,000 now and anticipate to revert it to the full limit shortly," said an HSBC statement.
Al Hamez, meanwhile, confirmed that certain foreign and national banks operating in the country were defrauded of a small amount of money through accessing the secret PIN numbers of customers.
"Forged ATM cards were used in the Far East to siphon off the money fraudulently," he said.
"The banks involved have taken several precautionary measures which we cannot reveal at this stage. However, the situation is under control. ATM cards used in the country are secure, but these scams occur in almost every country of the world and are handled in the same way."
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