Congress proposes eliminating payments with cards without a secret key

Congresswoman Katy Ugarte, from the Parliamentary Unity and Dialogue bench, proposes eliminating charges that do not require a secret key when making a transaction. The objective is to provide greater security to the user of the financial system to reduce fraudulent use of their bank accounts.

Bill 6000, “Law that eliminates micropayment and provides greater security to the user of the financial system”points out that businesses and companies must require the use of the secret key, the presentation of the DNI or its analogue, and another means of authentication in all transactions or operations.

In addition, it is specified that although micropayments were authorized by the Superintendency of Banking and Insurance (SBS), through resolution No. 6523-2013 to facilitate financial transactions and that they were useful during the pandemic, when the minimum contact, recent data shows that it is being used to commit crimes.

For example, according to the Peruvian National Police (PNP), more than 4,000 crimes are reported every 24 hours, including robbery and theft. While Indecopi has received 4,406 complaints and 2,054 complaints against companies in the financial system for operations not recognized by users so far this year.

It should be noted that the maximum amounts of micropayments allowed are defined by each financial institution. Furthermore, the initiative states in its statement of reasons that this problem is compounded by the difficulty that users encounter in blocking their cards after the theft, which gives hours of advantage to criminals.

“The increase in crime in our country merits the making of decisions that provide greater security to citizens, among them, the elimination of micropayment (…), in order to provide greater protection to the user of the financial system, and thus protect your assets. Likewise, this will strengthen your trust in financial entities and will contribute to reducing the improper use of financial products at the hands of third parties,” the document states.

The initiative must be evaluated by the Congressional committees before going to the Plenary Session for debate and voting.