Overseas Indians to get 'visa` card

India`s government is considering giving overseas Indians a special smart card that will enable them to go to India at any time and stay as long as they wish without going through the usual legal and security wrangles.

The Hindu quotes Jagdish Tytler, minister for Overseas Indians Affairs, as saying the card will have a lifelong multi-entry visa.

The Overseas Indians card will be different from the Persons of Indian Origin card, which has a renewable fixed visa of six months.

Chinese authorities have approved a large-scale EMV chip card pilot programme in Pudong, Shanghai, in a bid to improve financial security after a recent massive data breach at CardSystems Solutions in the US.

That breach potentially exposed 40 million cardholders to fraud.

According to Finextra, Shanghai was selected as the test site because it has the highest bank-card usage in the country, with more than 50 000 point-of-sale terminals and 4 300 ATMs.

Vietnam`s largest commercial bank, Vietcombank is planning to switch all of its magnetic automated teller machine (ATM) cards to chip cards next year, reports Thanh Nien.

The move is to affect almost a million customers holding Vietcombank ATM cards.

Vietcombank card manager Nguyen Tu Anh, describes the switchover as "inevitable" and adds that the switchover will not affect the country`s other banks, as Vietcombank`s ATM network will handle both magnetic and chip cards for the next few years.

Emirates Bank Group chairman Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer recently inaugurated the Middle East`s first EMV (Europay Mastercard Visa) Certified Personalisation Centre at Network International.

MENAFN.com reports that Network International, a pioneer in third-party processing services, is the first independent vendor certified by both Visa and MasterCard for card payments in the Middle East.