At the end of the last millennium, Malaysia was notorious for having one of the highest fraud rates in the world. Acceptance of Malaysian credit cards overseas was at an all-time low and merchants in many countries were reluctant to accept such cards. As a result, the Central Bank of Malaysia, Bank Negara, mandated that by the end of 2005, all credit card transactions by Malaysian banks had to be encrypted and EMV-compliant in order to curb the high rate of fraud. A decision was made by United Overseas Bank (UOB) to update their existing credit card infrastructure to the latest technology that will support both the EMV and terminal line encryption standards that were mandated by Bank Negara.
To build an infrastructure that is fully secure, scalable and stable to carry the credit card transactions of the bank with minimal disruption to service and maximize cost effectiveness.
To build an infrastructure that is
secure, scalable and stable to carry the credit card
transactions of the bank with minimal disruption to
service and maximal cost effectiveness.
No changes needed to existing host
Rapid deployment
Total end-to-end solution for network security and encryption
Cost effective solution
Rapid ROI
By the end of 2003, the incidences of credit card fraud in Malaysia had grown to over 51,000 cases – representing a 127% increase from the previous year and totaling RM60.6 million in losses (Source: Bank Negara Malaysia, 2004). Malaysia had earned a less-than-flattering position within the top-5 Asia/Pacific countries for credit card fraud. Skimming fraud had accounted for 93% of total credit card fraud losses for 2003 and wire-tapping was a recent development.
Among some of the steps and initiatives adopted in a concerted effort to address the problem directly, Bank Negara, Malaysia’s Central Bank mandated that all banks in the country would be EMV-compliant to counter card skimming, and to implement line encryption to foil phone and wire tapping.
United Overseas Bank Malaysia (UOB), incorporated in Malaysia in 1993, is a venerable bank dedicated and “committed to providing Quality Products and Excellent Customer Service”. UOB Malaysia today operates 41 strategically located branches throughout Malaysia and offers a full range of commercial banking and financial services. It was then decided by UOB management to update their credit card infrastructure to the latest technology that would support both EMV and terminal line encryption standards that were mandated by Bank Negara.
GHL Systems’ NetAccess and NetMATRIX were selected to be the core of their new credit card acceptance infrastructure – replacing the older equipment that was barely able to support the advances in the credit card industry and the changing information communications technology landscape.
GHL Systems implemented a turnkey solution for UOB Malaysia’s infrastructural needs. A network of NetAccess W1000 WAN Transaction Routers was installed in 5 branches as well as a Disaster Recovery site to handle the bulk of the transactions.
GHL Systems also provided UOB Malaysia with EMV consultancy to ensure compliance with Bank Negara’s mandate and used its terminal programming expertise to encrypt credit card transactions using NetMATRIX Terminal Line Encryption (TLE) technology to ensure that the sensitive credit card information carried over unsecured PSTN networks is encrypted and secure.
The new infrastructure was designed such that a link failure between the branch and main sites would not disrupt transactional flow, using NetAccess’ On-Demand-Dial backup over ISDN. The ODD over ISDN solution further allowed UOB Malaysia to migrate their leased line merchants from the aging analog leased lines being gradually phased out by Telekom Malaysia to faster digital ISDN lines.
Thereafter NetMATRIX TLE then performs the decryption of the transactions sent by the TLE terminals before sending the transaction over the secured network in the bank to the Credit Card host to be processed. In this way, the sensitive information is never in the clear until it reaches the bank’s private network.
UOB attained a secure, flexible, extensible and robust network to carry their EMV and TLE encrypted transactions throughout the nation. In the final analysis, it was revealed that GHL Systems’ solution actually saved them 50% of their capital expenditure (CAPEX). UOB Malaysia was particularly impressed with the multiple functionalities of NetAccess devices, as well as the speed in which the entire system was able to be deployed. Also impressive was the backup routing capability built into each box that ensures the transactions would be routed even when the primary link is down.
References in this publication to GHL Systems Berhad’s products or services do not imply that GHL Systems Berhad intends to make them available in all countries in which GHL Systems Berhad operates.
This document is based on information provided by UOB and illustrates how one organization uses GHL Systems Berhad products. Many factors have contributed to the results and benefits described; GHL Systems Berhad does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere
