Abu Dhabi: Emirates NBD, the largest bank in the Middle East by assets, has not changed withdrawal limits on daily transactions conducted by its customers through automated teller machines (ATMs) or on credit cards following a wave of fraudulent transactions noticed recently, a senior executive of the bank told Gulf News on Tuesday.
Suvo Sarkar, general manager for retail banking, said: "We haven't changed withdrawal limits on credit cards or debit cards for any transactions made within the UAE. What we have done is selectively reduce overseas ATM cash withdrawal limits in certain high risk countries to protect the interest of our customers."
Some banks operating in the country noticed an intrusion into their ATM data with key information siphoned off. This forced them to alert their customers to change their personal identification numbers (PIN) in a bid to thwart possible fraudulent transactions.
"As a temporary precautionary measure, all international credit card cash transactions have been blocked and the daily purchase limit is reduced to Dh3,000," said the First Gulf Bank in an SMS to its customers.
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Sarkar said they had identified around 20 countries in the high-risk category but declined to name them. He said there's a withdrawal limit of Dh10,000 per day on ATMs for the customers of the bank, while there's "no daily limit" on purchases using the credit cards.
