Guru Speak

 Internet banking is allowing customers greater freedom and access to day-to-day banking while card technology is providing greater convenience and faster transactions.

However, banking and financial transactions are not only becoming more accessible and faster but - more importantly - they are becoming more secure. This is crucial in today's environment where criminals are growing in sophistication and fraudulent scams are being launched around the world every day.

Visa's latest creditcard technology Visa PayWave, which uses a contactless payment system, is an excellent example of new technology keeping the banking industry one step ahead.

The system allows shoppers to simply tap their card on a reader and instantly pay for a purchase, cut¬ting transaction time to just three seconds and providing greater security because the cardholder no longer has to hand their card over to shop assistants. This prevents the risk of the card falling into the wrong pair of hands or being copied.

The Internet - and Internet banking in par¬ticular - is another area where security has been a major feature of new products and serv¬ices. Internet banking systems feature stateoftheart security, which includes encryption of data, firewalls, intrusion detec¬tion software and automatic signoff. This ensures that customers operate in a secure environ¬ment.

Shopping online, like Internet banking, is now as common as shopping in a department store. Recognising this as a shop front to the world the two major credit card companies MasterCard and Visa recently launched their Verified by Visa and MasterCard Securecode services, which increase the security of online payments so that cardholders know their payment is going to a legitimate merchant.

Consumers, however, also need to take responsibility for ensuring their daytoday banking and financial transactions remain secure. There are a number of simple actions they can take such as making sure no one can see their PIN number when withdrawing money from an ATM, never writing down their PIN number, avoiding using Internet cafes to make online purchases or perform Internet banking, and never giving out their banking details over the phone or in an email.

As banking products and servic¬es continue to evolve and develop so too do the sophistication levels of criminals trying to fraudulently obtain people's money. That's why the banking industry must continue to stay two steps ahead.