Topic: E-Fraudstars Are In Trouble(KEY TO PROTECTING YOUR ATM)

Introduction
My name is Mitchel Elegbe, the Chief Executive Officer of Interswitch Ltd. I trained as an Electrical and Electronic Engineer. Before venturing into the credit card business, I had job experience in areas like the oil sector, computer.

Interswitch is basically a transaction switching and processing business.It was created about five years ago in collabortion with a group of banks that wanted to have some kind of shared infrastructure so that they can bring down the cost of there transactions.

The company has been on since then .Today, it has all the banks in Nigeria in its network and it provides services on various channels like ATM, Internet, through bank branches terminals. Recently, the company and its bank partners First bank, Oceanic, Union, ETB, Intercontinental, Springbank among others agreed to launch a campaign to sensitise credit card holders on the best way to preserve their cards against the antics of e-fraudsters who are known to use various means to gain access to the account of cardholders. Some of these methods include phony promos telling their would be victims about winnings in draws that they never participated in, misleading and false information about the operations of Interswitch. It is our intention to beat the e-fraudsters in their own game with the cooperation of the media- print and electronic

The campaign
This is not the first time we (Interswitch and the participating banks) are doing this.We’ve done it in the past.But the amount of money we put behind it was such that we could not make the desired impact.What we are doing this time around in collaboration with the banks is to put a lot of money into it to ensure that we can check the tide of these fraud messages.We cannot stop the fraudsters from sending e-messages,but we can give you the information that will enable you to decide the best action to take when you get such fraudulent messages.

The dos and don’ts
The first thing is, let’s come from the check world. Nobody will teach someone else how to sign his own signature.So we’re basically saying that your Personal Identification Number(PIN) is your signature.Protect it.Treat it the way you treat your normal signature.If I think you know how to sign my signature,what do I do? I try and change it.In the same way, without your PIN been compromised, nobody can access your account .

That is the system and that is the way it has been.And because they want to have access to your account, that’s why they want to deceive you so that you can willingly reveal your card details.And once you try to do that ,they are as good as you.Unfortunately,the system today, cannot tell whether it is Yakubu that is using Yakubu’s card or some one else.So,the system works on the basis of some thing that Yakubu has and the thing that Yakubu alone should know.So,when what Yakubu has and what Yakubu alone should know end up matching,then we assume it is Yakubu.But if Yakubu himself willingly gives these things out then it becomes a big challenge.We are saying, do not give these things out.Under no account, will we ever ask you, our customer, to give us your PIN or card number.If your card number has been compromised ,your PIN will be blocked .That is the first thing you should do.And once you do that ,the bank knows what to do next.You don’t have to register anything anywhere.

Challenges
The greatest challenge is that of infrastructure.But then, every challenge can be solved to a large extent.We have been able to address that concern.The latest challenge is card holder awareness and we are trying to solve that.I am one of those who believe that every problem in life has a solution.So,once we recognize a new challenge, we go after it and try to solve it.Card holders awareness is the latest challenge we have and we can take care of it

Market penetration
If you look at the number of banks on the network as a basis,we have all the banks.If you look at the number of ATMs, for example, on our network,we have the largest .But we are not the first company in this business.We were basically number five years ago.

Response to competition
Competition is healthy .We do have competition.Like I said, about five years ago, we were number six.Today,we are number one.The real challenge now is, now that we are number one, how do we stay ahead. It is challenging and that is why this job is fun.

Hello, Babeface your bank did that because of the risk involved.But, i tell u that interswitchng.com is a well secure site.
The topic was posted by the CEO of interswitchng.com,for more clarity visit www.sun.com