Colombia regulator holds banks liable for credit card fraud

The Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia has ruled that banks can be held civilly and contractually liable for fraudulent credit card transactions, even if the physical card was used.

In a recent case involving a fraudulent transaction of 6,399,000 pesos, the authority ordered a bank to reverse the amount along with associated interests and collection costs. The ruling emphasizes that a bank's responsibility is not automatically waived simply because a customer may have lost physical control of their card.

Instead, the regulator focused on whether the financial institution failed to implement required security mechanisms or failed to detect transactions that deviated significantly from the customer's habitual spending patterns.