Nationalized banks fail to dispense bank cards to account holders amidst chip shortage.
Lakhs of new bank account openers of nationalised banks wait for their cards from October 2021 due to heavy chip shortage in the country.
Ashitha, a teenager who opened her account in November and waiting for the card said, “I am walking up and down for my debitcard. The bank only has excuses but no cards.”
The public sector banks in the country have 1.67 lakhs credit card and 63.72 lakhs debit card requests pending.
A verified source from a Nationalised bank’s South zone office said, “We have shortage of electronic chips in the country. We do not produce the chips rather we import. Recently, we have stopped importing from China and that is the reason behind the shortage.”
Rohini, senior manager from Indian Bank said, “We are coping up the shortage with our web application. We are also getting the surplus cards from banks with less demandand giving it to banks with more demand like the city branches.”
Nalini, marketing head from Punjab National Bank (PNB) said the situation is prevalent in all Nationalised banks in the country.
The Finance ministry has asked all the public sector banks to promote Rupay cards instead of the foreign cards. However, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that owns Rupay, has no indigenous chip producers.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had advised, “With effect from September 01, 2015 all new cards issued – debit and credit, domestic and international – by banks shall be EMV chip and pin based cards.”
However reports from the Finance ministry said that, “NPCI has informed that most of the mag-stripe cards are manufactured in India. A very little quantity of these cards is manufactured outside India. However, most of the Smart Cards (EMV cards) are manufactured outside India.”
