BBL in push for debit chip card
Bangkok Bank is strongly promoting its chip-enhanced debit cards to consumers in terms of safety, and plans to increase the number of automated teller machines in a bid to persuade both existing and new customers to change from magnetic-stripe to chip car
BBL is the only Thai bank to launch a secure debit card with EMV chip technology. Its so-called Be1st Smart card was introduced in 2010 to help prevent fraud arising from card skimming and cloned cards. EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, is a global standard for cards embedded with integrated circuits.
Despite the added security of EMV, the fact that BBL is the only Thai bank so far to embrace this technology means that debit cards so equipped only work in BBL ATMs, and this has limited the cards’ popularity, said executive vice president Thaweelarp Rittapirom. Of the bank’s total base of 14 million debit cards, only 2 million are chip cards. Most customers still use magnetic-stripe cards.
The bank this year will increase the number of ATMs to 9,000 from 8,000 to facilitate holders of chip cards. Meanwhile, it will aggressively promote the benefits of chip cards to consumers, also encouraging them to use the cards for payments and not only cash withdrawals from ATMs.
He said that the bank placed importance on debit cards because they are a basic product for deposit customers; it no longer offers ordinary ATM cards without a debit function.
In March, BBL and Bangkok Smartcard System (BSS) of BTS Group launched the Be1st Smart Rabbit debit card for Skytrain riders as the part of the effort to get Bangkokians to use debit cards to pay their BTS fares. There are now 30,000 Rabbit Cards in use.
The bank yesterday introduced famous actor and screenwriter Chantavit Dhanasevi as its presenter to promote the chip debit card to Bangkokians.
Thaweelarp said the bank hoped the number of Rabbit Debit Cards would exceed 400,000 this year after promoting the benefits of chip cards.
Last year, BBL in cooperation with film producer Kantana Group launched the Echo Planet smart card to promote EMV and acquired 400,000 cards.
“We believe communication will help reinforce the Rabbit Debit Card. The number of Smart Rabbit cards should more than the previous Echo Planet smart cards,” he said.
Shoke Na Ranong, executive vice president of BBL, said the bank hoped debit-card transactions at point-of-sale would rise from 6 per cent currently.
