State Bank of India (SBI) has extended its OTP-based cash withdrawal service to 24x7. Withdrawal of Rs 10,000 and above across all SBI ATMs in the country through OTP authentication has been extended to throughout the day effective September 18, 2020. For withdrawing Rs 10,000 and above, SBI debit card holders now have to enter OTP sent on their registered mobile numbers along with their debit card PIN each time.
Note that in order to safeguard their customers from fraudsters and scammers, SBI had introduced OTP based cash withdrawals of above Rs 10,000 between 8 pm-8 am through SBI ATMs from January 1, 2020. The OTP is a system-generated numeric string of characters that authenticates the user for a single transaction.
"With the introduction of 24x7 OTP-based cash withdrawal facility, SBI has further strengthened the security level in ATM cash withdrawals. Implementing this facility throughout the day would prevent SBI debit cardholders from the risk of falling prey to fraudsters, unauthorized withdrawals, card skimming, card cloning and the likes," SBI said in a statement.
Once customers enter the amount they wish to withdraw, the ATM screen will ask for OTP and they are required to enter the same received on their registered mobile number in order to proceed with the withdrawal. The OTP-based cash withdrawal facility is available only at SBI ATMs as this functionality at non-SBI ATMs has not been developed in National Financial Switch (NFS).
CS Setty, MD (Retail & Digital Banking), SBI, said, “SBI has always been at the forefront in ensuring convenience and safety to its customers through technological improvisation and augmentation of security level. With the enablement of 24x7 OTP authenticated ATM withdrawals we believe SBI customers will have a secured and risk-free cash withdrawal experience."
Worth mentioning here is that SBI recently also introduced a new facility keeping in view the rising incidents of ATM-related frauds. Under this new facility, every time an SBI customer visits an ATM and checks balance or mini statement, SBI will alert him by sending an SMS so that the customer becomes alert and can block his debit card if the transaction is not initiated by him.
SBI has alerted its customers to remain cautious and not to ignore the SMS alert regarding balance inquiry or mini statement when the request is not initiated by him.
