Axis Bank has reported that several of its credit card customers have been affected by fraudulent transactions conducted overseas. Sanjeev Moghe, the head of cards and payments at Axis Bank, stated that customers noticed unauthorized transactions through transaction alerts for low-value purchases on certain e-commerce sites.
Moghe clarified that there has been no data breach on the bank’s end and that the scale of fraudulent transactions is quite limited. He assured that customers’ data remains safe and secure.
While some fraudulent transactions were halted by the bank’s internal systems, many customers were still impacted. Axis Bank records approximately ₹500 crore in daily spends by its credit card customers. Therefore, the extent of fraud transactions, when compared to this figure, has been relatively minor.
Moghe mentioned that the impacted customers represent only a small fraction of the overall spends, estimating the affected customers to be in the thousands or lakhs.
The fraudsters managed to access card numbers and paired them with expiration dates to conduct unauthorized transactions. Since these were international transactions, they were processed without the need for a second factor authentication, such as a one-time password over SMS or the CVV number. The initial six digits of a 16-digit card number are specific to the bank, and card numbers can be intercepted when the card is used for payments at petrol pumps or restaurants.
Axis Bank is replacing credit cards for affected customers and reimbursing the debited amounts. The incidents have been reported to the Reserve Bank of India, and the bank is considering strategies such as audits to prevent future occurrences.
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