The Czech Bank Card Association (BCA) has just joined EAST (the European ATM Security Team) as the national representative member for the Czech Republic.
The BCA was formed in 1991 as the Interbank Payment Card Association to coordinate activities of the Czech banking community and to promote the development of payment cards, including preparations for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Only financial institutions can be full members and all 16 major banks are members.
The BCA Security Committee deals with the issues of security and security standards in the area of payment cards, and takes action against payment card fraud. BCA delegates co-operate with their counterparts from individual payment card issuers and processors and with the international card companies and the Czech police authorities. The BCA is the point of contact for the Czech National Bank and is invited to assist in drafting and amending regulations relating to payments and cards.
The BCA issues regular quarterly statistics concerning indicators of development in the area of payment cards in the Czech Republic. BCA Statistics indicators include only member institutions of the BCA and are grouped into several areas: card issuance, installed bankomats (ATMs), area of card acceptance at locations, and development of card acceptance on the internet.
In addition to the Czech Republic, EAST has national representation from the following 24 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom. EAST is still seeking national representative members from: Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovenia.
Both Canada and Russia are represented at EAST as non-SEPA members and EAST is seeking to establish links with parties in any country, able to share national incident and loss statistics for ATM related fraud and physical attacks. Interested parties should email info@eas-team.eu in the first instance.