Millions of rupees have been stolen from the accounts of depositors at Himalayan Bank Limited (HBL) through fraudulent use of debit cards. The bank has blocked all operations of its debit cards for the time being after the thefts were revealed.

HBL CEO Ashoke Rana said that debit card transactions had been blocked to secure depositors from such unauthorised activities by upgrading the entire

security system.  According to him, the money was withdrawn last week from New Delhi. "We have initiated an investigation after an accountholder complained," added Rana.

A director of the bank said the unauthorised withdrawal amounts to less than Rs 4 million. The bank has suspected the hand of a fugitive former employee in the debit card fraud.  He added that HBL debit cards could be unusable for the next two weeks.

The central bank has also said that they had been informed about the fraud verbally. "We have asked HBL to provide details of the incident," said Nepal Rastra Bank spokesperson Bhaskarmani Gnawali.

The bank said that it was now seeking to improve its security system by introducing Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) which will block any hacking attempt on bank accounts.

The PCI DSS is a proprietary information security standard for organizations that handle cardholder information for major debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse and POS cards. According HBL CEO Rana, the central bank has also directed banks to go for such a system.

Meanwhile, in a notice published on Thursday, HBL has asked its debit card holders to contact their respective branches to replace the existing pin mailer with a new one for SCT and Master Debit Cards.