So Should You Really Change Your Chinese Bank Card?
Last month, reports circulated online that the magnetic stripe on many Chinese bank cards would no longer work after May 1, 2017.
The news sparked a lot of confusion, with some banks confirming that the changes would happen while others dismissed it as just a rumor, according to local media reports.
But do you actually need to switch your bank card?
As reported in various Chinese-language state media outlets (including Xinhua, Beijing News, People's Daily, China Daily, CCTV and many, many more), the swiping feature on "hybrid cards" — those with both a magnetic stripe and chip — was to be disabled starting from May 1, 2017, following a notice issued by the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, in 2016.
The move, part of a number of new rules also issued on May 1 (including one which requires online gamers to register for accounts using their real identities), was said to be part of a larger initiative to increase bank card security nationwide. Magnetic stripes are supposedly more suspectible to forgery, particularly on the hybrid cards.
The stripe function on "hybrid cards" will no longer work after May 1, according to a number of local news reports
The chip will continue to work normally on these hybrid cards, and "pure magnetic stripe cards" are said to be completely unaffected by the changes. An employee at a major Chinese bank also confirmed this information with That's.
For more information on all the types of cards issued by Chinese banks, click here.
When the That's team tested out the swiping feature on hybrid cards in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou after the May 1 deadline, however, the results were extremely mixed across issuing banks and shops.
Some stripes on hybrid cards were unable to be used by POS machines, while others continued to operate normally. In certain cases, the same card produced different results depending on the venue we visited. And in other cases, a card from one bank worked just fine while another bank's card failed to process at the exact same store.
ATMs, which usually require inserting the entire card (rather than swiping), were generally able to read the cards during our tests.
When That's editors tested the swipe function on hybrid cards after the May 1 deadline, it turned up mixed results
UnionPay, meanwhile, has reportedly deactivated the feature in Hong Kong and Macau, and That's has received word that the stripes on some hybrid cards no longer work overseas.
The general consensus among Chinese-language news reports seems to be that while it's not required to change your card, you should probably consider making the switch as the country's banking system gradually moves towards upgrading to chips.
According to the Beijing News, the People's Bank first began promoting the switch to chip cards in 2013. And since 2014, more ATM and POS machines have begun closing down the swiping function for hybrid cards.
Meanwhile, Sina reports that there is no timetable in place to completely phase out magnetic stripe cards, and as many as 3.3 billion were believed to be in circulation at the end of 2016.
As always, we'd recommend contacting your bank before deciding whether or not switch your card, since the rules and notices seem to differ between banks.
See a full list of bank hotlines, card processing fees and more here.
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