According to figures released by Visa International, cardholder expenditure in Egypt grew by 75 per cent between December '98 and December '99. But just as banks are embarking on a drive to increase the number of credit card holders in Egypt from the current 200,000 to around five million, the issue of credit card fraud through the Internet is rearing its ugly head. In a letter to clients, Banque Misr recently announced that it was temporarily suspending all transactions on its Visa and Master credit cards via the Internet, regular mail and phone, following several incidents of fraud. While Hisham Saleh, operations supervisor at Banque Misr, insists that the sums involved were not large, the move begs several questions related to security when using credit cards to purchase goods and services via the Internet. The majority of Internet transactions by Egyptians, Saleh says, tend to be limited to ordering books or else downloading services from sites.
Larger transactions require the bank's approval before funds are withdrawn from clients' accounts.
The ban on Internet transactions, Saleh says, will be lifted as soon as Banque Misr has a more secure system in place to protect clients. So far, Banque Misr is the only bank to have reported incidents of credit card fraud in Egypt. Sanjay Kao, vice president at Citibank, insists that his bank has had no similar incidents concerning its own credit card, launched on the market six months ago. Kao attributes this to the installation of a fraud early-warning system, which alerts the bank to any unusual transactions on clients' accounts. The early warning system allows the bank to check with clients to authorize any unusual transaction.