In a report in The Star, the migration to PIN from signature is meant to further protect cardholders.

“This is a preventive measure as fraudsters will eye the weakest link, which is the signature-verified market,” the English daily quoted Paul Brisk, the founding director of Cotignac.

Cotignac is a payment systems consultant which is handling the Malaysian credit and debit card system migration.

Brisk explained that PIN-verification added an extra layer of security as it was a “two-pronged system”, which combined a physical card and a PIN which would only be known to the user.

He revealed that Malaysian-issued cards would use a six-digit PIN which would be required for all transactions except “contactless” transactions involving sums below RM250.

The Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) executive director Chuah Mei-Lin said PIN-verification would come in handy when it came to lost and stolen cards, adding that Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) chips had addressed the issue of cloned cards.

“An EMV chip helps to reduce fraud as it is very difficult and costly to counterfeit.

“The chip contains a secret unique cryptographic key, and unless that key can be extracted , it isn’t possible to copy or clone the chip,” she said.

In a separate article, Brisk revealed that all signature verified credit and debit cards must be replaced by year end, although cardholders would still be able to sign on purchase bills until July 1, 2017.

The grace period, he explained, was to enable credit card users to familiarise themselves with the new system.

Banks and other card issuers who fail to replace all signature-based cards by the year end must notify Bank Negara and provide a reason.