Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is about to replace the signature-based system for credit and debit card transactions with personal identification number (PIN) verification for strengthened security.
Eight million credit cardholders are now receiving their new cards in batches, and the exercise has already started to meet the January 2017 deadline by BNM. The other 21 million debit cardholders would have to go to their respective banks to collect their new cards.
This new system will act as a preventive measure as fraudsters tend to eye the old signature-verified system. As of now, this PIN from signature system is already implemented in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, while the Middle East is also making a similar move.
The PIN verification would prove to be effective when a card is lost or stolen. The new system comes with a chip that contains a unique cryptographic key that is not possible to copy or clone.
[Source]
