Top tips for banking safely in the digital age
Everyone has had friends or family members targeted and robbed by financial criminals.
No one wants to experience the horror of suddenly realising all your money is gone – yet it’s an all-too-common story.
SIM swaps, phishing, App-jacking and stolen cards are unfortunately the norm.
Think about being held up for hours whilst criminals run amok with your bank cards and pins.
Or worse – they access your accounts via App banking or internet banking.
Money gets sent to a cell number for quick cash withdrawals – while larger amounts are immediately paid to mule accounts.
Simply put: It is a nasty and traumatic experience.
Houston – we have a problem
As the festive season beckons, your hard-earned money is now ready for well-deserved action – so it is imperative that malicious parties don’t get to it.
While it is important to bank smartly – don’t share your PINs, passwords, OTPs, or card details – these measures don’t help when being held hostage. For example, App jackers or the infamous phone theft while “waiting for your Uber ride” with unlocked phone gives easy access to your money.
Thankfully, there are ways to protect yourself from this advanced breed of criminals:
- SMS OTPs and Sim swaps are dangerous
Criminals armed with your unlocked phone can (with some skill) reset your online banking password or App PIN. Victims are in the dark – because the phone is gone, and instead criminals get your SMS OTPs.
By the time you complete your own SIM swap and then pair on another phone, it’s way too late. Bank Zero does it differently: your SMS OTP also goes to a BACK UP CELL NUMBER enabling you to immediately pair on another phone.
This means you don’t have that agonising wait for several hours. Once paired on another phone, simply delete your stolen phone pairing – the criminals are immediately disarmed!
- Keep your money in time-locked cash investments
Notice deposits are great as they offer locks from 7 to 45 days. Even requesting an early withdrawal will only release the money the next day.
Criminals are left frustrated as they see your cash, but they can’t immediately steal it.
- Say no to extra “available balances”
Criminals target available balances in most phishing attacks – even if this means putting you into card debt and ruining your home loan.
Your debt is cash to the criminal.
Rather use a savings account (which still earns interest) for emergencies and lock the rest of your financial accounts and products away.
- Overdrafts are a big no-no
Not only are overdrafts expensive; they also work like credit cards when it comes to criminals putting you into debt.
If you have an overdraft because you’re worrying about forgetting a debit order, Bank Zero gives you a big warning and allows another business day to correct your balance without that debit order “bouncing”.
Technology is your friend!
- Split your banking from day-to-day banking and loans
Keep your loans at separate institutions and don’t store digital access to these finances.
Voila – criminals can’t access your loans, and neither can you in moments of stupidity.
- Bank cards differ significantly in security
Bank Zero has zero card fraud thanks to its groundbreaking card patent, the unique management of online authorisations, and its secure subscription management.
Nothing gets spent without your explicit approval.
- Biometrics prevents phishing losses
Be sure your bank uses their own biometrics in addition to your phone biometrics.
When phishing criminals try to trick you into giving away everything (including passwords and OTPs), your bank should only allow new phones to access your accounts after validating them firstly against your phone biometrics and then also against their own biometrics of you.
Bank Zero has zero phishing losses as all new phone pairings are biometrics-checked before unlocking all transactions.
- Get app notifications instead of SMS notifications
SMS notifications are typically sent by banks only if transactions are above certain thresholds – thus potentially enabling criminals to steal your money without you ever knowing it.
SIM swaps are also common with phishing – and they’re a disaster. By the time you realise something is wrong, it is way too late.
Bank Zero does both App and email notifications without thresholds, which means you always see all your money movements and other actions like phone pairing, recipient changes and more.
This ensures SIM swaps have little to no impact on you.
Bank smarter with Bank Zero
Imagine being armed with the above – you will limit your losses to what you have in your day-to-day bank account.
Bank Zero makes implementing all of these tips seamless and simple and comes with various additional native systems and solutions which protect your money and your financial data to unprecedented degrees.
Click here for more information on Safe Banking, with Bank Zero
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