STRATEGIC PARTNERS
November 3, 1999
MOSCOW -- In the wake of a scam in which a Russian criminal ring tampered with ATMs in Moscow and created fake cards to withdraw money, a number of Russian banks have made a decision to re-issue Visa and Europay plastic cards. According to the Tass news service, bank officials believe that one processing center was the center of the problem. Information about card numbers and PINs of their owners was received from the EM-module (responsible for connection with Europay). However, the payment system is unable to disclose information about who was the source of information about the cards. According to some sources, the EM-module was responsible for processing transactions on 65,000 cards, of which 280 have proved vulnerable to fraud. Others say all 65,000 cards have been compromised. According to Tass, no payment system has made an attempt to disconnect any Russian bank or processing center or restrict their operations in any way. At the request of the payment systems, banks are not disclosing the reason for the re-issuing of cards. Bank officials are calling for early action against the company or the bank that has permitted information leaks.
