State Bank of India finally plugs debit card online glitch

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State Bank of India has finally plugged a glitch in the online payment gateway of debit card / ATM card of all banks in the State Bank group following a report in the Deccan Chronicle on last Wednesday.  

A city-based software engineer, M.S. Anoop, who detected the loophole in the security, had alerted higher-ups of the bank three weeks ago,  but no action had been  taken.

According to sources in the bank, the provision to resend the one-time password has been disabled and the mobile number of the account holder, which could be earlier manipulated by anyone with the knowledge  of computer programming, has been encrypted.

Mr. Anoop, technical lead in GDS Technologies here, also verified it with his bank account and confirmed that the error has been  corrected. 

 He suggested that it could have been done in a better way as disabling option to send one-time password could cause some inconvenience to the customers.

“After I demonstrated the hitch to SBI officials last week, I had been checking with my account whether it was  rectified. But till yesterday it was there. In between, I also sent an e-mail enquiry to an SBI official and got a reply that the issue was taken up with the bank’s corporate centre.

Meanwhile, sources at the office of the banking ombudsman said that the banks should take immediate action  on such security issues.

Otherwise, customers who suffer any loss could file complaints against the banks concerned. Sources in the banking sector also said that the State Bank should thank the  software engineer who brought the defect to their notice.