UCPB to Open Branches Nationwide on July 29, Saturday

UCPB will again open all its 188 branches nationwide on Saturday, July 29, 2017, to give its account holders enough time to get their EMV chip-equipped VISA Debit Cards.

In a statement, UCPB Vice President and Marketing Group head Charina D. Balanquit said their operations on July 29 would be the fifth Saturday that the bank opened its branches to disburse the EMV-enabled automated teller machine (ATM) cards.

The bank started to replace its cardholders’ magnetic-striped cards in October 2016 and has given its clients until August 1, 2017 to get the more secured Europay, Mastercard, and Visa-powered ATM cards.

“We’re doing the de-activation of non-EMV ATM cards to protect our cardholders from fraudulent transactions. At the end of the day, our cardholders will benefit from this exercise,” Balanquit said.

The statement said nearly 50 percent of UCPB’s cardholders have claimed their EMV-enabled ATM cards.

Shift on the use of EMV-enabled ATM cards is in line with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Circular No. 859, aimed at ensuring safe transactions in the country.

BSP earlier set January 1, 2017 as deadline for banks to fully migrate to EMV technology but most banks failed to meet it.

Thus, the central bank’s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) has set a “hard deadline” of June 30, 2018 to fully comply with the requirement.

Banks that fail to meet the deadline will be penalized.

Despite the fact that most banks failed to meet the January 1, 2017 EMV-compliance deadline, BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla Jr. earlier said some financial institutions have improved their multi-factor authentication (MFA) system to increase their capacity against cyber attacks. (Joann Santiago/PNA)