Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public (BCEL) has advised chip cardholders to update their passwords to avoid ATM skimming which is now quite prevalent in Laos.
BCEL has urged its customers to adequately secure their debit cards after several customers reported losing large sums of money from their bank accounts through unknown atm withdrawals.
These transactions were potentially made using devices installed illegally on ATMs or POS terminals to capture data or record cardholder PINs. The stolen information is then used to make fake debit or credit cards mirroring the original for illegal purposes.
A notice issued by BECL states that customers who have registered on BCEL One application can change their PIN directly on the app to increase the security of their cards.
The bank also informed that customers can change the type of their ATM cards from magnetic stripe ones to chip cards without fees until the end of March as the latter is much more secure.
Those cardholders who have yet to register with BCEL One app and want to exchange their standard cards for chip cards and also change their password can do so at any BCEL branch.
Customers can select to withdraw cash via BCEL One Application through the option of ATM Cash withdrawal to avoid fraud and contact the number 1555 if they suspect any foul play.
