High-value credit or debit card purchases may require buyer to flash ID proof

There are reportedly close to 50 million credit card holders and 300 million debit card holders in India and every month, banks have been receiving at least 2000 complaints relating to purchases made using stolen or lost credit and debit cards.

To prevent such fraudulent transactions, which are mostly perpetuated by impersonation through stolen, lost and hacked cards, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has already suggested a number of steps to be implemented by banks, such as requiring cardholders to register their cards under the "Verified by Visa" or "Master Card 3D-Secure" program before August 1, 2009 to enable cardholders to continue using their cards for future online transactions.

In case of offline transactions, banks have urged the merchants to verify the identity of cardholders through authoritative photo identity proofs such as PAN card, Driver's License, Passport or Voter ID card.

As an additional security measure, some banks have also begun issuing credit and debit cards bearing the photo of the cardholder.

To further guard against frauds, the banks have also started sending SMSs to the customers the moment some high-value purchases (usually above Rs.1000) are made, so that the real cardholders can immediately seek remedial actions if they had not actually made the transaction.