Blog article
See all stories »

An article relating to this blog post on Finextra:

UK online banking losses continue to climb

The UK financial services industry experienced a 55% spike in losses from online banking fraud in the six months to June 2009 as cybercrooks adopted more sophisticated tactics to dupe consumers.


See article

Preventing online fraud

Today’s figures from Financial Fraud Action UK are both good news and bad news for UK banks and consumers.

The fact that card fraud losses have dropped 23 percent recognises the work that the banking industry in the UK has done to introduce tools such as real time monitoring and blocking of transactions, EMV, or authentication products such as CAP devices. I think it is true to say that fraud has moved overseas, to countries that don’t have the comprehensive systems in place yet to prevent fraud, or who haven’t completed their EMV roll out, but as those systems are introduced they will impact fraud levels.

However, on the other side of the coin is the massive increase in online banking losses of 55 percent from last year. This rise is completely unsustainable and must be addressed. With products such as Faster Payments, banks do not have the luxury of time in their fraud prevention and detection processes. Many are implementing real time prevention, two-factor authentication, SMS alerting or IP profiling to prevent online banking fraud, but these projects must be completed as a matter of priority. Banks know they have got to maintain confidence in their online banking channels so customers don’t stop using them, and they are doing what they can to act quickly before customers are scared off for good.

4012

Comments: (1)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 15 October, 2009, 12:35Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Customers don't scare that easily. If they did, they'd have dumped debit cards in the 80s and would have run screaming from telephone banking in the 90s.

The "my mum" generation still use branches because they prefer it to other channels. The digital immigrants use the phone because it's convenient. The digital natives use the net.

And, guess what, when retail customers are genuinely victims of defraud, their bank refunds them and the customer feels even more loyal to the brand and their favourite channel.

Banks aren't daft. They know the bad guys will go for the point of least resistance so if they secure cards, the phone and the net, then the crimes become more physical and that's far worse.

Now hiring