TANZANIA: Law to combat online theft from banks in the pipeline

Written by DAILY NEWS Reporters in Dodoma.

THE government is finalizing a Cyber Crime Act, which will help curb theft through banking institutions, Deputy Finance Minister Ms Saada Mkuya told Parliament on Tuesday.

She said the government, through Bank of Tanzania, has issued guidelines to financial institutions on how to start payment systems online so as to improve the technology .

The aim, she said, is to reduce or completely do away with challenges that come with online banking. She was responding to a question by Kidawa Hamid Saleh (Special Seats-CCM) who said that advances in technology had brought both development and some challenges, including theft in banks through information technology.

She wanted to know how prepared the government was in confronting this challenge. Ms Saada Mkuya said in order to confront the challenge of online theft in banks, the Bank of Tanzaniaa has asked banks to use new technology Uero Master Card Visa, which is EMV-compliant and uses a chip-based system.

“The government wants banks to stop using the old system of using magnetic stripes which are outdated and can easily be manipulated to steal money from banks,” she said.

Source: Daily News (09/05/2013): http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/parliament-news/17228-law-to-combat-online-theft-from-banks-in-the-pipeline