Serbia Blocks Bank Cards over Hacking

Several banks in Serbia have blocked clients’ electronic payment cards for security reasons, following an investigation into possible fraud. 

Raiffeisen and Hypo Alpe Adria banks in Serbia have confirmed they blocked their clients’ cards after issuers of debit cards warned them about a possible compromise of users’ personal data.

“In the last two days, Raiffeisen Bank, like many other banks in the country and abroad, have received from payment card associations information that a number of credit cards might be compromised due to possible unauthorised access to databases,” said Raiffeisen in a statement issued on Friday. 

The banks said that the blocked cards had not been blocked because of misuse but because of preventive measures designed to protect the customer.

Clients’ whose cards have been blocked will be able to get new ones by the end of next week. Until then, money will be available over the counter in banks.

Komercijalna and Societe Generale banks also announced they have been informed that the cards of some of their clients might have been compromised. 

The Marketing Director of Komercijalna bank, Goran Milicevic, told Serbian broadcaster B92 that the bank had received information from Visa International. This bank decided not to block cards, but has introduced a special monitoring of 1,800 of them. 

A spokesperson for the Visa Europe card association said it did not comment on issues such as this.

“We heard about possible data compromise in payments in Europe. If there are any compromises, we do not speak on the behalf of the institutions.

“Visa works with the institutions being compromised and takes care that the banks get the list of clients that may been subject of any compromise,” Visa’s spokesperson told Balkan Insight adding that it is a decision to be made by banks as to how they will protect card holders.

“In such cases, we provide information to the banks, and banks then decide whether they will block the cards and issue new ones or monitor the activity and block the card if there are any sign of misuse,” he said.

Member of the Societe General‘s executive board, Miroslav Rebic, told Serbian daily newspaper Tanjug that card associations had informed this bank that the data base of one retail chain that operates in Central and Eastern Europe had been hacked into. 

The Serbian prosecutor responsible for handling cases of such crimes, Branko Stamenkovic, said that by Friday afternoon his office had not received any complaints regarding misuse of bank cards.