“I had withdrawn exactly twelve thousand Rupees. But, to my surprise, the double of the sum was reduced from my account,” says Sikha Sharma, a student, who was in the ATM at Baneshwor when the transaction record rolling out of the machine showed that the amount deduced from her account was way more than what she had just withdrawn. “Although I quickly reported the bug to the bank, it took me two days to set the calculation right and save my money. The bank explained it was due to the malfunctioning of the machine,” she adds.[break]
The week
With technological advancement revolutionizing many fields today, the financial world has also undergone many changes: banking has turned electronic, and, with it, the process of money withdrawal has become largely automated. As a result, the plastic money – the hard plastic cards used in all forms like debit cards, credit cards, and cash cards in place of the actual bank notes – has become a convenient mode of handling money, albeit more failing and less dependable than actual cash.
The invention of plastic money has undoubtedly turned the world of finance around: money withdrawal has become prompt and more accessible with ATM counter abundant in number and widespread in locations; purchasing has become more spontaneous and simple with a card-swipe, and keeping track of one’s account has become easier. However, with all these linger the risks that come with the electronic-handling of one’s money.
Balkrishna Sharma, an education consultant, shares his experience of struggling with pin codes that failed him as he tried, in vain, to extract money from an ATM. “It was one of the Dashain days when I was trying to collect money from an ATM. But, to my dismay, on that particular day the machine refused to accept my otherwise well working pin code,” he says, explaining that a staff had to be summoned and a new code had to be devised instantly for the account to be re-accessed.
“I am not sure whether it was the erroneous machine and the software causing the problem or it could my account being tampered. But at the end I had my money safe,” he says with a sigh.
Pin codes stealing or hacking is one of the major frauds against ATM. And especially after the scams of some private Nepali banks, the problem has surfaced more piercingly. In those cases the perpetrators of the fraud were tracked and the victims refunded. But these and many other unreported experiences have made the general public more responsive to the probable risks of the popular plastic money.
Rojina Limbu, a student, was quick to contact her bank as her visa card stopped working. “I was used to experiencing minor technical troubles with ATM, like reinserting the card or reentering the code. But as my card was not accepted continuously for multiple times and in multiple locations, I thought it necessary to report to the bank,” says Rojina whose bank then briefed her of the technical problems in the system that had caused them to hold the card transaction temporarily.
Following the frauds and complaints of the customers, the banks themselves have also started undertaking measures to minimize the fraud risks. Laba Kumar Timilsina, an employee in the System Department of a private bank in Kathmandu, views that frauds are less the errors of technological shortcoming and more the results of human misuse.
And hence to minimize them, Laba says that “considering the past cases and the probable risks of pin codes being misutilized by the bank staffs, some banks have started prescribing compulsory change of pin codes as soon as the card is handed over to the customer.” Apart from this “the security in the ATM counters is also increased with timers and cameras being inbuilt in the machine,” Laba adds.
Similarly, perils resulting from the loss of cards are also high. Considering the fact that the card-readers in the stores and shops rarely demand pin-codes and hardly verify the personal signatures during the time of purchase, the risk of stolen or lost cards being exploited is considerably high. To avoid this, some banks in the SCT network have set off the need of entering security numbers while capitalizing any purchase transaction.
Problems also occur because of connection or network failures. Given the weak internet connectivity and intermittent load shedding hours, some card readers or swipe machines malfunction, sometimes failing the transaction, and yet at other times causing the undemanded changes in the account, only to be reported for clarification and rectification.
Nabaraj Thapa, Chief Executive Officer of Manjushree Financial Institution , talks about the service of plastic money. “No system is flawless, and so is the system of plastic money and automated money withdrawal. Network problems, low connectivity, limit of an ATM in terms of the money it can store, fraud, incorrect loading of bank notes in cassettes inside the ATM, all these can be causes of problems and inconvenience. But despite it all, there have been much improvements made. The whole system of receiving and offering the service is growing more reliable with technological advancements and gaining widespread popularity.”
The widespread use and popularity of plastic money is certainly indisputable. There are rarely commercial hubs and shopping centers that do not offer the service of cash cards. Suren Shrestha, a shop owner in the Civil Mall Kathmandu, explains of the increasing demand for paying from cards. “Visa cards and debit cards are popular mode of payment. About half of the customers on a day pay from cards,” says Suren whose shop has swipe machines from multiple banks in it to make sure that variety of customers are facilitated.
Plastic money has become an order of the day. Be it a high-end restaurant, a super mall or a local grocery store, transactions have become convenient, and purchasing simple and even impromptu credit/debit cards at hand. Plastic money is also highly favored for its safety from being mugged or robbed. Yet, this apparently convenient means also has its share of issues that need be carefully tracked and corrected in order for the system to be rendered reliable.
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