Efforts have been made to prevent credit card frauds, says association

Aditya Suharmoko ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 02/28/2008 11:29 AM  |  Business

The country's credit card association said Wednesday a recent case of fraud involving thousands of counterfeit cards caused fewer losses to customers than originally thought.

Earlier this month, police confiscated about 7,000 counterfeit credit cards that used stolen data. About 6,900 of the cards had been used for fraud. Police also found 160 electronic data capture (EDC) machines and 12 skimmers.

The case highlighted a breach in security involving stolen data from credit card holders, and many feared that some 9 million cardholders in Indonesia were at risk.

However, Lani Darmawan of the Indonesian Credit Card Association (AKKI), dismissed this suggestion, saying: "The credit card fraud has so far inflicted minor losses only."

Credit card issuers, she said, were currently conducting internal reviews to find a way to help reduce the rate of credit card fraud.

The country has 19 banks and one non-bank financial institution issuing credit cards.

More than half of credit card issuers have now changed their cards from magnetic stripes to chips to increase security against credit card fraud, Lani said.

The others will soon change their magnetic-stripe cards to chips, complying with a central bank regulation that stipulates all credit card issuers must switch to chips by 2010.

Through the end of last year, the country's credit card issuers had given out 9.2 million credit cards, up from 8.21 million in 2006. The total value of credit card transactions in 2007 rose to about Rp 72.7 trillion (US$7.99 billion) from about Rp 58.3 trillion the previous year.

Lani said most credit card issuers had an "early detection system" to verify whether a credit cardholder had used their card to purchase goods.

"If a credit card issuers finds an 'irregular' transaction has been made, their representative will call to make sure a transaction was really made."

Sri Suparni, the central bank's deputy director for accounting and payment systems, suggested that credit cardholders cooperate with credit card issuers' representatives should they call to verify a credit card purchase.

"They only want to confirm whether credit cardholders really did the transaction," she said.

Both Lani and Sri said the rate of credit card fraud in the country had declined from several years ago.

Lani said people did not need to worry about using their credit cards because credit card issuers would be responsible for any losses inflicted through fraud.

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