THE Central bank of Nigeria, CBN recently recorded compliance to its directive that all banks in Nigeria migrate from magstripe type of payment cards to chip and PIN based cards.

This is as Intercontinental bank Plc rolled out drums last week in celebration of its pioneering the first Chip and PIN verve card tagged Intercontinental Verve card. The event held at its Victoria Island Lagos headquarters at the weekend. 

The CBN in apparent bid to curtail the growing fraud prevalent in the banking sector, woke up recently, directing all banks operating in Nigeria to migrate from the magstripe based payment cards to chip based before the end of the second quarter of this year.

Obviously the magstripe cards were prone to compromise due to its method of usage and easy way of duplication. Because a magstripe card is used mostly by swiping across a terminal, fraudsters devised a means of inventing magnetic mechanism which retains the details of the card after being swiped on the machines and of course its cheap and easy way of production fueled more frauds that left unfortunate card users in misery.

So the introduction of this brand of payment card, which runs on Interswitch platform, makes the bank the first to comply with the CBN directive and according to the bank, gives its customers a leverage which others would always envy to experience.

Group Chief Executive of the bank, Dr Erastus Akingbola, while addressing the gathering at the launch of the card, described the development as another feat by Intercontinental Bank, saying this has separated the men from the boys in the banking business in Nigeria.

According to Akingbola, through today’s event Intercontinental has become the first Nigerian bank to issue the Verve Chip and PIN with loyalty card created in Nigeria for the world. With this development a new symbol of technological progress is making headlines in the Nigerian e-banking industry.

Akingbola said that besides upgrading all its channels to honour transactions initiated from these cards, in line with the CBN directive, his bank also deemed it necessary to move a step further by introducing the chip based card.He noted that staff from relevant departments of the bank were also trained on different aspects bordering on card operations, card issuance, business and product development dynamics set around the functionalities of these cards in order to ensure effective compliance and management.

He stated that the bank has ordered and taken delivery of the two brands of the chip cards and presently working on the modalities involved in migrating all its customers to the new enhanced and more secure EMV chip and PIN verve payment card on the Interswitch platform.

The Bank believes that by the new development, it is also adding another feather to its cap by making history as the first bank to issue a full EMV compliant local debit card in Nigeria.

Verve is a chip based card positioned as a premium, innovative brand set to meet the needs of the issuer, merchant and consumer by providing convenience, absolute security, reliability, recognition and reward.

According to Akingbola, “the cards many features have become a hot topic lately, and for good reason, because it surrounds transactions with iron-clad security.  The era of card cloning and loss of funds is coming to an end. In a nutshell, the information stored on the embedded microchip on this card is extremely difficult to hack and transactions are done with an even more secure personal identification number (PIN)”.

He said Intercontinental Bank PLC has always been a front runner in service delivery and customer satisfaction and will be taking the lead in the issuance of this new secured chip cards.