Republic Bank shuts down some VTM cards after fraud alert

A series of unauthorised breaches of Republic Bank VISA Travel Money (VTM) customers cards triggered the bank to block the transactions before money could have been fraudulently siphoned between September 28 and 30.

A statement from the bank said customers received online alerts that someone was trying to make transactions with their cards and alerted the bank.

The bank did not identify the number of customers who were affected by the fraudulent scheme but noted its investigations revealed that the attempted transactions "arose out of a compromise of the customer's cards at third party locations."

The bank did not identify the locations but said the unauthorised transactions were "successfully blocked" by its "anti-fraud systems and online alerts triggered where customers had registered for the bank's online alerts." The bank encouraged customers to register for this service as it provides a real time response of transactions.

"Cards that were considered compromised were disabled by the bank," the statement said.

The bank referred to a previous notice in January which stated that it was going to discontinue the VTM card product and noted then that the replacement of disabled cards was not automatic.

The response from the bank came after a number of cardholders complained on social media about their cards being shut down.