Members of the public face long queues to change cards

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KUCHING: There seems to be a panic rush by the public to change to the new and improved security debit cards at banks in the city.

The situation could be seen in many banks. The public were seen queuing in long lines and bank officers had to process an extraordinary amount of requests to change to the new debit cards.

PKR Selangau branch chief Joshua Jabeng, who witnessed the scenario yesterday, said the pressure was very high among account holders, especially the young and elderly who had to line up for hours to have their debit cards changed.

“A counter staff even complained they were also not able to take a short toilet break,” he told a press conference here yesterday.

Joshua, who is also state PKR leadership council member, attributed this chaotic situation to the unclear instructions from banks about the need to compulsory change their automatic teller machines (ATMs), debit and credit cards.

“The public were told that charges would be levied on those account holders applying for the new debit cards late. Also, rumours are rife that the account holders’ cards would be rendered useless after Dec 18, 2016 unless they were updated.”

He suggested that banks sent out official notice to all account holders stating the actual arrangement instead of blaming the social media.

Additionally, he suggested Bank Negara Malaysia step in to manage the situation by allowing banks to extend their deadline by six months at least to give more time to the public to change their debit cards. He also called on banks to set up temporary outlets or counters in areas such as supermarkets to speed up the process and clear the backlog.

Meanwhile, state PKR vice-chairman See Chee How said the unavailability of banks in the rural areas like Kapit would also be giving the rural community a lot of problem not only in changing to the new debit cards but also in performing bank transactions.

In citing the closure of a bank in Kapit recently, he said it resulted in the village folk not being able to perform their banking transactions.

“They said the bank has been merged with the one in Sibu but how would their customers from Kapit do their transaction? You can say they can perform their transactions online, but how are they going to do that when their villages don’t even have Internet connection?”

He said the short notice of one month given by the bank before it closed was also giving the villagers a lot of problem, adding that many of them might not even be aware of the notice and would be caught by surprise when they found the bank had closed.

“It is a poor business sense as well because in Kapit, they are going to construct the Baleh dam. We are talking about RM900 million going to Kapit and they closed down their branch. What kind of business sense is that?”

However, he believed the decision to close down the branch was done by their national leaders.

“You (the government) talk about the country doing well but the banks are all closing down their branches,” he said.