Financial Times

Anti credit card fraud law in May
By Duruthu Edirimuni
The legal draftsman is to send the draft legislation addressing all frauds relating to electronic payment devices such as credit cards to the Ministry of Finance this week for final approval before being presented in parliament. Therese Perera, Legal Draftsman, was hopeful that laws pertaining to electronic card fraud would be ready by May this year.

"Unless the Ministry of Finance has alterations, the draft legislation is due to be presented in parliament within the next three months," she said. Ravi Waidyalankara, Head of Commercial Crimes Division, CID said that during the past two months, he received nearly 10 complaints of credit card fraud compared to seven for the whole of 2004.

Some industry officials said that these figures are alarming for an industry which has a low penetration of half a million credit cards in the country. Of the credit card frauds recorded last year, most cases involved stolen credit card numbers and counterfeit credit cards, which were used to buy goods or services. Often fraud victims did not know their card had been used illegally until they received their monthly statement.

Meanwhile the stakeholders in the industry complain the piece of legislation has taken too much time. Nirosha de Silva, Chairperson Card Industry Task Force, said it is vital to have proper regulations in place, especially in today's context when credit card frauds are rampant.

"Presently we cannot bring the criminals to justice effectively, because they are charged under civil law, which is a long drawn process," she said. "The fact that most cases of credit card frauds are now virtual crimes, make perpetrators very hard to seize without proper legislation in place."

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