Punjab National Bank is shutting down ATMs that don’t scan card chips starting today

• Punjab National Bank is shutting down non-EMV ATMs starting today, February 1.
• EMV ATMs are those which hang on your card during a transaction, unlike others which allow customers to swipe and transact.
• EMV chip enabled transactions are said to be more secure than regular magnetic cards since it’s nearly impossible to clone.

In an endeavour to make financial transactions more secure while also playing catch up, Punjab National Bank (PNB) is shutting down its non-EMV ATMs starting today. This applies for financial and non-financial transactions such as checking your balance or even changing your PIN.


Old school ATMs only required individuals to swipe and the machine would read the magnetic strip. With chip-enabled ATM cards, the machine holds the card while a transaction is conducted.

With non-EMV PNB ATMs being shut down, it means that those machines which do not hang onto your while you make a transaction will no longer be functional starting February 1. The number of such ATMs being shut down is not known.

Latest in a slew of updates for PNB
In December, PNB announced that it would no longer allow customers to withdraw more than ₹10,000 from ATMs round the clock. Larger transactions would only be possible between 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.

Furthermore, any transaction of more than ₹10,000 would require an one-time-password (OTP) that will be sent to the customer’s registered mobile phone number.

What is EMV?
EMV, an acronym for the three companies which created the security standard — Europay, Mastercard and Visa — is a technical quality level for smart payments cards. EMV cards are also called smart cards, chip cards, or integrated circuit cards.

EMV chip card transitions are considered to be more secure than regular magnetic card transactions. It negates the possibility of criminal hackers cloning a customer’s card because while the magnetic strip can be copied, bad actors are yet to find a way to duplicate a chip.

EMV cards generate new data every time a fresh transaction is made, which makes it nearly impossible for fraudsters to copy the original data from your card.

EMV cards also generate a unique encrypted code called a token or a cryptogram for every transaction.

In India, EMV cards were introduced in May 2015 by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The apex banking institution asked all banks to gradually phase out magnetic cards and move to EMV chip cards with a deadline of 31 December 2018.

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