Debit Card / Credit Card New Rules from 1st October 2020 - All you must know.

While its always encouraging to see India moving forward with Digital payments, Fraud related to digital payments has also been on a constant rise and its not uncommon to see misuse of New Debit cards and credit cards on online platforms. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued several guidelines starting from 1st Oct 2020 for credit cards as well as debit cards.

Guidelines for NEW Credit and Debit Cards

1) No Online Transactions allowed by Default - At the time of issue / re-issue, all debit and credit cards shall be enabled for use only at Domestic ATMs and Point of Sale (PoS) devices within India. - It means that cardholder must physically be holding the card for use. It will not be available for online transactions by default and it has to be explicitly enabled for online transactions via Bank Portal/IVR or the Bank branch.

2) No International Transactions allowed by Default - New Debit or Credit cards issued will not work outside India by default. If you (card-holder) want to use the card outside of India, you need to request the bank for the facility.

3) No Contactless Cards by Default - Recently many banks have been issuing Contactless cards which uses "Near Field Communication" Technology (NFC). As per new RBI guidelines, Cardholders can enable or disable NFC feature. New cards would have this feature disabled by default.

Guidelines for EXISTING Credit and Debit Cards

1) Existing Debit or Credit cards which are already issued, Banks reserve the right to disable the card for International transactions or contactless transactions feature. If you are planning trip abroad, don't forget to check with your bank about whether its enabled for International transactions or not.

2) If your Credit or Debit card has never been used for online payments, RBI has strictly asked the banks to disable Online transactions and contactless transactions rights in India or abroad. If its already used once, then you need not worry about the same.

3) As a card-holder, you can now set transaction limits on your card to avoid any surprise.

4) Existing Cardholders will be able to opt-in or opt-out of Online transactions (e-commerce), Contactless transactions as well as International transactions.

Apart from these guidelines, All Cardholders will have 24x7 access to switch ON or OFF or change transaction limits via all available channels like IVR, Mobile Banking, Internet Banking as well as ATMs. 

The above guidelines do not apply to pre-paid cards like Gift Cards or Metro cards etc.

These are well-thought guidelines issued by RBI to curb cyber-fraud. However, as a Card-holder, one must ensure that they understand the guidelines so they can enable/disable features based on their use.

One can login to their Banking app and find these preferences under "Manage Cards". It is advisable to review the current preferences for Online transactions, NFC Transactions as well as International Transactions.