OREANDA-NEWS. October 27, 2010. Raiffeisenbank has begun to issue all of its Visa bank cards with an embedded chip. These cards are subject to the standard rates of the Bank. As before, they will have a magnetic strip, which will enable customers to use the card in any ATM and retail and service business that accepts Visa, reported the press-centre of Raiffeisenbank.

The presence of the chip will significantly increase the level of security of the cards. In the future, smart cards will allow Raiffeisen to implement various high-tech projects.

"Raiffeisenbank was the first bank with foreign capital, which issued bank cards in Russia in 1999, and now we are particularly pleased to be one of the pioneers among foreign banks in bringing chips to our Visa cards. The presence of the chip in the card increases the level of protection from unauthorized access and helps avoid losses from fraudulent transactions," said Andrey Stepanenko, a Board Member of Raiffeisenbank, and the Head of Retail Private Individuals Directorate.

"Visa does its utmost to develop the most up-to-date and the best protected technologies and products. We welcome the decision of Raiffeisenbank to improve its product line and offer all Visa cardholders — from Visa Electron to Visa Infinite — a safer and more functional payment instrument. We hope that other companies on the national payment cards market will follow this example this example," said Andrey Vylegzhanin, Visa Business Development Executive for Russia.

In addition, in order to enhance the security of the cards, Raiffeisenbank has completed certification in the VISA international payment system which enables VSDC chip cards (VISA Smart Debit/Credit) to be used in its ATM network. Now all Raiffeisenbank ATMs accept VSDC VISA bank cards. The Bank has also introduced the technology Verified by Visa (VbV) for all Visa Classic, Visa Gold, VISA Business, Visa Platinum and Visa Infinite debit and credit cards.

Visa is a global payment system, which provides cardholders, retail and service businesses, financial and governmental institutions in more than 200 countries around the world with a quic, secure and reliable electronic payment network. Electronic payments are made through the global innovative processing system VisaNet, which is capable of processing more than 10,000 transactions per second, providing protection against fraud for consumers and guaranteeing payment to merchants. Visa is not a bank, does not issue payment cards, does not establish fees or interest rates for consumers and also does not issue loans to card holders. In turn, Visa’s innovative solutions allow financial institutions to offer their customers a wide range of financial instruments, including debit, prepaid and credit card products.

More information is available at: www.visa.com.ru