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Bank Indonesia on Wednesday sought to assure bank customers that their money was safe and that those who have reported an unexplained dwindling of their accounts would have the missing sums reimbursed.

More than a dozen customers of three banks in Bali have reported that their accounts had decreased significantly with money withdrawn without their consent, police said. The central bank later announced that six lenders nationwide had reported customers losing funds.

“Customers who lost money only need to report it to their bank to be verified and replaced,” said Budi Rochadi, a Bank Indonesia deputy governor.

Account holders need not panic because banks would cover the losses once they were confirmed. An investigation had been launched and measures to prevent similar cases had also been taken, Budi said.

The central bank’s preliminary investigation showed that unidentified parties had stolen data from ATM cards, including personal information and PIN numbers, by skimming. The criminals then made duplicate ATM cards to siphon the accounts.

Denpasar Police Chief Sr. Com. Gede Alit Widana said 15 people in Bali with accounts at PT Bank Central Asia , PT Bank Permata and PT Bank Negara Indonesia had reported losses over the weekend. Police have questioned witnesses, but Gede did not identify them.

“We are still calculating the total loss, but it could reach hundreds of millions of rupiah,” he said.

Budi said customers at PT Bank Mandiri, PT Bank Internasional Indonesia and PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia had also been affected.
He said there was still no estimate of the total losses, but at one of the banks “there were 236 accounts victimized with total losses at more than Rp 4 billion [$432,000].”

Budi said the cases only involved ATM cards using a magnetic stripe, not more secure electronics chip.

“By the end of last year, all credit cards have been equipped with a chip. Bank Indonesia has no time limit for lenders to replace their magnetic stripe on debit cards because of the expens e,” he said.

Banks were now planning to convert all of their debit cards soon, Budi said, adding that Bank Indonesia had demanded that lenders check their ATMs and electronic data capture machines to make sure that there was no equipment secretly installed to steal data.
BNI corporate secretary Intan Abdams Katoppo said the cases affecting the bank only took place in Denpasar and involved only two of the bank’s 86 ATMs in the city. ATM surveillance would be intensified, she said.

Five BCA customers in Kuta reported losses reaching Rp 255.5 million to the authorities, Kuta Police Chief Dody Prawiranegara said.

The victims included two foreigners who claimed to have lost Rp 25 million and Rp 18.5 million, respectively.