German retail bank Deutsche Postbank is introducing a digital signature service in a bid to protect its Internet banking customers from online phishing scams.
Citing a survey by Germany's TNS Infratest, Postbank says 80% of online banking customers says they wouldn't recognise a phishing e-mail.
The bank says it will begin attaching electronic signatures to all e-mails sent to customers so that they can check whether an e-mail that appears to be from the bank is real or fake.
The digital certificate is issued by TC Trust, the German subsidiary of GeoTrust. By clicking on the symbol in the e-mail, customers can see whether the e-signature is valid. If something is incorrect in the signature, a warning message appears on screen.
Last July Deutsche Postbank was reportedly targeted by fraudsters who used spam e-mail claiming to be from bank staff in an attempt to obtain customers' passwords and PIN numbers.
In August, the bank introduced a new indexed transaction number system (iTAN) in an attempt to protect its Web banking customers from online phishing attacks. Customers are informed of an index number when banking online, which will direct them to the iTAN number they must use to complete a transaction.