FNB Slashes Card Limits Due to Fraud

Jo-Maré Duddy

28 April 2011

Increasing card fraud has forced FNB Namibia to slash the daily international purchase limit on clients’ debit cards.

Tienie Mouton, senior manager of shared services at the bank, yesterday said in a statement FNB Namibia took the step to reduce the daily international point-of-sale (POS) purchase limit on debit cards from the beginning of June to align it with the local POS limit due to the “unfortunate increase of card skimming/cloning”.

The bank would not disclose by how much it cut the limit. However, The Namibian has it on good authority that the amount is substantial.

“It has unfortunately become a trend nowadays that cards cloned in Namibia are immediately relayed cross border and duplicate cards are then made.

“While fraudulent withdrawals are made in Namibia at the same time withdrawals are also done outside Namibia. The international POS purchase limits remained high and the fraudster/s outside Namibia would go on a shopping spree to empty our customer’s accounts,” Mouton said.

He added that should clients travel outside the borders of Namibia and want to increase their limits, “that would obviously be done by the bank”.

“We then only urge our customers to be extra vigilant and to ensure that they have their cards with them at all times and not to leave them out of their sight,” Mouton said.

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