Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The Eastern Bank Limited (EBL), a leading private commercial of Bangladesh, is always committed to ensure safeguarding the interest of its valued clients.
“We’re using up-to-date technology and have anti-skimming devices installed in all our ATMs, which are also EMV compliant. We also issue EMV chip based credit/debit Cards since 2013 in Bangladesh,” the PCB said in a clarification on Sunday.

The EBL issued the clarification after withdrawing of money from clients’ accounts using debit/credit cards through hi-tech frauds.
The PCB has found 21 individual cards impacted and these cards were used to withdraw cash from other banks’ ATMs, not at the EBL ATMs.

“To safeguard cardholders further, we temporarily stopped EBL card access to other bank ATMs and vice versa. We are going to replace the plastics to further safeguard the cardholders,” the EBL said.

All EBL ATMs are fully functional and all EBL cardholders can use any of its ATM and POS devices 24×7, it added.

The private bank is now monitoring everything in consultation with the central bank of Bangladesh to revert to inter-bank operation soon.

It also said: “The EBL assures full reimbursement of the money to all the affected EBL cardholders, subject to the investigation report.”

Earlier on February 12 last, the EBL received complaints from some of their cardholders through contact center that their cards are being used at various other bank ATMs for cash withdrawals.

Based on the number of similar calls and complaints, “We suspected card skimming case and suspended our ATM network services from 12 pm to 6.00 pm.”

During this period, the PCB analyzed the complaint data and found that two of its ATMs in Gulshan area in Dhaka have been used by the fraudsters to copy cardholder data by using skimming devices.

“Though all of our ATMs are equipped with an-skimming device, but the fraudsters used even more sophisticated technology to read magstripe card data. As a security measure, all our cardholders get SMS Alert after a transaction.”

As soon as these unauthorized transactions were reported to the EBL, the PCB blocked the reported 21 cards.

Moreover, to protect customers, the bank also blocked all the cards that were used in the suspected two ATMs during the last week. “We’re going to replace the plastics to further safeguard the cardholders.”

BBN/SSR/AD