Article

Czech Republic joins European ATM Security Team

The Czech Bank Card Association represents 16 major banks and more than 3,000 ATMs.

January 13, 2011

The European ATM Security Team (EAST), which issues quarterly data on ATM-related security issues, today announced that it has admitted the Czech Republic.

The Czech Bank Card Association (BCA), which is based in Prague, has joined EAST as the national representative member for the Czech Republic, said Lachlan Gunn, EAST coordinator.

"EAST has been looking for a member from the Czech Republic for sometime. The Czech Republic has attended a past EAST meeting, but we did not have a formal relationship until now. We were introduced to the BCA through a banking contact," said Gunn, who is based in Edinburg, Scotland. He added that it is not clear yet what data the Czech Bank Card Association will provide EAST.

Sixteen major banks are members of the Czech Bank Card Association, which coordinates activities of the Czech banking community. The association deals with issues of security and security standards for payment cards and takes action against payment card fraud, Gunn said. The Czech Bank Card Association, which was founded in 1991, also promotes the expansion of payment cards throughout the country.

Czech Republic banks have deployed 3,868 ATMs in the country of 10.5 million. In 2009, there were 156 million ATM withdrawals valued at 21.9 billion euros (U.S. $29.2 billion).

The country has 16 banks, five building societies, 16 foreign bank branches and 17 credit unions that offer banking services, according to the European Payment Cards Yearbook. There are 10 major banks in the Czech Republic, including Ceska Sporitelna, CSOB, Citibank Europe, GE Money Bank and ING Bank. Ceska Sporitelna owned 1,244 ATMs at the end of 2010's first quarter, and CSOB owned 744 ATMs at the end of 2009.

With the addition of the Czech Republic, EAST now has national representation from 25 European countries. The other countries are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. With the addition of the Czech Republic, EAST members represent 373,383 ATMs, Gunn said.

EAST also is seeking national representative members from Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia."EAST is seeking representative members from all Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) members," Gunn said. EAST represents 25 of 31 SEPA countries.

EAST is a not-for-profit organization whose members gather information and disseminate EAST reports to ATM deployers and networks within their countries and regions.

The reports concern ATM skimming, physical attacks on the machines such as ATM ramming, and card trapping.