Advice for card holders as banks begin a swap
Print Edition
FROM November on, POS terminals in China will close down demoted trade for financial IC cards, which means that bank cards with both micro chips and magnetic stripes can only function with its micro chips and their magnetic stripes will be useless.
Magnetic cards can still be used as before
The pure magnetic stripe cards will still function as before. However, magnetic stripe cards have a lower security level than micro chip cards and are easy to be copied so bank card holders are advised to swap them for chip cards.
Swap charges are different in different banks
From January 1 next year, all commercial banks will stop issuing new magnetic cards and all newly issued cards will be chip cards. Commercial banks have various charges for card swaps from 5 yuan (82 US cents) to 40 yuan.
Card swap will cost 20 yuan at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, 40 yuan at China Construction Bank, which may also have some discounts at some of its outlets.
At CITIC Bank, it will cost 20 yuan for ordinary card holders and 10 yuan for gold card holders. It will cost 5 yuan to 20 yuan at the Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Bank of China. Banks may also have different charging policies according to the levels of clients.
Will the card number change?
Some of the banks offer card number preservation services when they issue chip cards. However, not all bank cards can preserve the card number.
For example, Bank of China customer service staff members said bank cards with numbers beginning “6217” can preserve their card numbers but cards starting with “4367” cannot.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China preserves all the clients’ original card numbers for those beginning with “62” and “9588”, except the Money-Link cards.
It’s worth noting that if the magnetic card has fixed term deposit or wealth management products, the card holder has to wait for these to expire.
When the card number is changed, the utility bills, mortgage payments and car loans which are linked to the old card should be transferred to the new card.
Industry insiders say that if card holders fail to preserve the card number should notify the loan providers and credit card provider of their new bank card number to avoid having overdue record because of the inability to link to the account numbers.
Card holders should not throw away their old cards
Industrial Bank Co Ltd’s staff said they will help card holders to cut up old cards after the swap. If old cards are not handed over to the bank staff, card holders should take car in disposing of them.
The magnetic cards contain the holders’ personal information and should not be carelessly discarded even after they are disabled.
China Everbright Bank staff said that magnetic cards can be copied so if they are not properly disposed of, they may cause security problems after falling into wrong hands.
In fact, some people are already in the illegal business of buying disabled bank cards and the original card holders may suffer losses.
Industrial insiders warn card holders that they should have their disabled bank cards accounts canceled and destroy the magnetic stripes by cutting a piece out of the stripe to prevent security risks.
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