The Financial Services Agency has instructed its advisory committee to discuss whether banks should compensate victims of stolen bank cards, the FSA said Friday.

Financial Services Minister Tatsuya Ito also said that the panel will debate how customers can be protected against crimes of this nature.

Some victims of card-related crimes claim that financial institutions should compensate not only those whose savings have been stolen via forged bank cards, but also those who have experienced financial loss through stolen cards.

Members of both the ruling coalition and opposition parties have also urged financial regulators and banks to handle these two scenarios in a similar manner.

The FSA committee, which had originally planned to release its final report on compensation for bank card fraud by the end of this month, will postpone the deadline due to the expansion of its agenda, a senior agency official said.

The official did not elaborate on a possible new time frame.

The Japanese Bankers Association said last month that member banks would in principle fully compensate all victims of bank-card forgery, as long as they are not to blame for the forgery of their cards.

Yet the banking industry remains cautious in respect of expanding compensation to cover victims of stolen bank cards.