(ANSA) - Italian banks need to adapt quickly to the European security standards and substitute the old credit cards with new microchip cards in order to guarantee better protection for their customers, Italy's central bank Bankitalia director in charge of payment systems, Carlo Tresoldi, said.
Credit card frauds increased by 16 pct in the first six months of 2005 in Italy, Tresoldi said.
In September 2005, only 2.0 pct of the credit cards in Italy were adapted to the new European security standard, EMV standard for interoperation of IC cards, compared to a European average
of 42.5 pct.
Only 1.0 pct of POS terminals and 0.8 pct of ATMs have been adapted to the new standard.
In 2004, a significant increase in frauds through "phishing", attempts to fraudulently acquire information, such as passwords and credit card details via the Internet was registered, while crimes with lost or stolen credit cards dropped.
The introduction of chips on all credit and debit cards will become obligatory by 2010, Giuseppe Zadra, managing director of the Italian Banking Association (ABI), said.
All cards, 60 million, POS, 800,000, and ATMs, 40,000 will have to be adapted to the new standard by 2010. The European Central Bank's Single European Payments Area (SEPA) is expected to be created by 2010 with the aim to enable people to make payments in the euro zone as securely, quickly and efficiently as payments within national borders.
Differences between the levels of service for domestic and cross-border retail payments are to be eliminated by 2010. Some 52 billion non-cash payments are made in Europe annually.
