Millions of Debit Cards blocked after security risk

The Economic Times newspaper has reported on Thursday that swamp of banks in India will either replace or ask customer to change the security codes of million debit cards on fears of potential discords. Of the debit cards affected, at least 2.6 million are on Visa and MasterCard platforms, while 600,000 are on the home-grown RuPay platform, the paper said citing unnamed people aware of the matter. According to paper, the worst-affected of the card-issuing banks are SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Axis Bank. State Bank of India said in a statement, "SBI has taken precautionary measures and have blocked cards of certain customers identified by the networks. Yes Bank said in a statement today it had proactively undertaken a review of its ATMs and found no evidence of any breach. On Wednesday, SBI had said that it had been informed by card network providers about a potential risk to some cards, and was replacing those cards as a precautionary measure. Other banks did not immediately respond to requests for comment. According to data from the central bank around 697.2 million debit cards in India as of end-July.