Information Technology has opened up new vistas in the banking sector. It is the tale of the past when a person used to walk miles together to reach a bank and be in a queue for hours together to perform a simple banking transaction. The world of business has seen dramatic developments in the areas of use of information technology and communication.
The Online Banking has now been around for over a decade and in the last three to four years has become a common feature with every major bank in the world.
Now the question that every customer may like to ask his Bank, Is it safe to use Online Banking? And the answer is going to be obviously ‘YES’  provided the customers take the necessary safety measures and precautions while using the online banking. Though it is being said that the crooks are always a step ahead of cops but the safety measures given hereunder can make all the difference:
As the computer with internet connectivity is the basic requirement for accessing your accounts through Online Banking and Banks provide the customers with e-banking user and password. The password is therefore the first line of defence between your online bank account and computer hackers or thieves. The customers need to have a long password comprising many different characteristics like alphabets, numbers and some special characters. The safest way to protect your password is to change it frequently. This way, if someone does get your password, it limits his chances of getting the right one.
The crooks also keep themselves updated with latest technology and many times the innocent customers are duped by obtaining their personal banking information through fake e-mails by asking to click on a given link for updations of the account information. Be it known to all customers that the Bank or any financial institution never sends an e-mail asking its customers for account confirmation through such mails. Therefore if you ever receive such type of e-mails even if with your Bank’s logo, please do not click the link provided with such e-mails. If you at any point in time by your ignorance happen to share your user-id and password through email or any other means, you should immediately change your password or contact your Bank to get your user-id disabled.
Always have different passwords for different accounts and never have the same password for your e-mail accounts and online banking. Your e-banking password should be different from all the other passwords that you use online. If your e-mail account gets hacked, your online banking account could be hacked easily if the two accounts have the same password. It is also an added security feature to create and maintain different passwords for sign-on and transactions.
Though the use of online banking facility gives us the option of accessing the accounts from our comfort beds, but at times the comfort level over powers us to the extent that we never bother to type the address of the site directly into the address bar but use the search engines to access the Bank’s site. To ensure the safety, you should never use search engines to locate the Bank’s site because that can land you in hackers net as there can be various other similar sites those are actually fictitious to hack your bank accounts.
Some computers and Web browsers automatically save password information. Be sure to adjust your browser so that it doesn’t automatically record and save your passwords because anyone who uses your computer can have access to your information, including spyware programs that are downloaded to your computer from the Internet. Anti-virus software can be your best friend when it comes to online banking. Anti-virus software will prevent harmful computer viruses from attacking your machine and taking personal information. Make sure your software is up to date.
Regularly download updates for antivirus and other software. This helps protect your computer and network from becoming infected with viruses that can steal your sensitive information or allow virtual thieves to hack in to your computer.
You should always take extra care while entering your user id and password to ensure that no one observes you while doing so and if you ever feel that someone has observed you while logging into the e-banking account, you should immediately change your sign on as well as transaction password or inform your Bank for deactivation of your e-banking user.
You should never leave your computer unattended while being logged on to your e-banking account and also ensure to log off once you finish up with your e-banking session. It is always better to close the window after log off to be safer.
To ensure the safety of your money, make it a habit to check your account statements periodically for all transactions to be satisfied with the authenticity and genuineness of the transactions effected in your accounts. Do not forget to inform your Bank immediately in case of any doubt or discrepancy.

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Lastupdate on : Thu, 8 Mar 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 8 Mar 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 9 Mar 2012 00:00:00 IST