SBI is doing this under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) directions make it mandatory for all Indian banks to switch to the globally accepted and safe EMV chip-enabled debit cards

SBI has said that it will not charge any fee from its customers for upgrading their debit cards before December 31

Once the December-31 deadline ends, all private as well as public banks, in line with the RBI mandate, will deactivate all magstripe credit and debit cards from January 1, 2019.

This development is in line with RBI guidelines to banks directing them to migrate entirely to debit and credit cards with EMV chips.

Some SBI account holders are receiving messages from the bank stating that their debit cards have been blocked permanently. The reason behind the blockade is that the bank has decided to replace Magstripe Debit Cards with EVM Chip debit cards for security reasons.

Card frauds range from purchases made on lost or stolen cards to phishing, identity theft and traps set up through unsecured Internet transactions. Some common sense and no-cost measures can protect you from card frauds.