According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission, close to 44,000 Californians fell prey to identity fraud just in the past year. The same report revealed that San Jose had the 5th highest level of victims in California. "We are acutely aware of the large number of incidences of online fraud and identity theft and the inadequacy of password protection for online transactions," said Mike Luckin, Senior Vice-President, Delivery Systems of the San Jose based credit union. "That’s why we chose to implement the program instead of waiting to learn from other institutions."

On November 16, 2005, Tech CU’s thirty thousand active Online Banking users said goodbye to their old log in process in favor of the more secure PassMark system.

The PassMark system provides secure two-factor authentication and anti-fraud filtering with a unique approach. By remotely identifying individual computers, it achieves two-factor security without requiring the user to have or carry any new tokens, cards or readers. In addition, each Tech CU member was given a secret PassMark—consisting of a small image and a phrase created by the member—that Tech CU will subsequently display to the member during log in. This is Tech CU’s assurance to its members that they have reached the legitimate Online Banking website and not a site “spoofed” to look like the credit union’s.

As one member who participated in the early testing said: "Security is one of my highest concerns. So, thanks for taking these measures." In fact, 93 percent of those surveyed rated Tech CU positively for taking an aggressive approach to improving online security.

Tech CU is committed to providing cutting-edge banking technology to meet its membership’s changing needs and to protect them from cunning and aggressive online thieves. Tech CU will remain vigilant in monitoring online fraud attempts and continuously seeking new ways to keep members’ accounts safe.