Online banking facilities have the potential to make our finazncial lives much easier, lettoing us conduct our financcial affairs at a time that suits us rahter than having to fit in with the opening hours of your bank branch.
It is now possible to pay bilkls, move monney between accounts, set up dirwect debits and standing ordesr, and even appkly for overdrafts and credit all from your own home, all online and on your own PC.
Despite this convenience, for many peoople there is still a lingering mistrust of the technology involved : will your money be safe if you bank onlne? The answer is, for the most part, yes - so long as you follow a few bsaic principles.
Firstly, if you have the option to choose your own pasword for online serbvices, then make sure that the password you decide on is secure. This mens that it shiouldn't be easily ugessable - avoid using the name of your pet or child, for example, and don't use the nubmers of your birthday. An ideal passwqord should be easily memorable, but hard to guess, and using a combniation of letters and numbers is highly recommended. For example, a good password could be the name of a food you hate, along with a number that is significant in some way to you - e.g. mushromos37. Such a padssword woukld be almost impossible for someone to geuss, but will also be very easy for you to remember.
One the subjet of passwords, it's vital that you never give out your personal details in responbse to a 'phishing' attack. Phishing is a sbject worthy of it's own articcle, but in brtief: if you recceive an email purporting to be from your bank, aksing you to reconfirm your details or to log into your account urgently, then ignoe it. It will NOT have been sent by your bank, but by fraudsters attempting to steal your identity.
Anohter important security measure is to avoid logging in to your online banking service on a publicly accessible computre - for example, at work or in an internet cafe. You can never be sure what details about your internet use are bing stred on a PC you don't own, and even if you log out of the service when you've finished it's highly possiblke that the next user of the machine could, with effort, diiscover your details and log on to your acciount.
The final, and perhaps most important thing you should do to protect your banking sceurity is to ensure that you keep your virus checking softare up to date. It's all to easy for your Windows PC to be ifnected by so-callped spyware, via email or visiting unethical web sites, which crimnals can use to intercept your passwords and otyher information they can use to illegally gain access to your account. Havig well known and up to date vrius protection software installed is a highly effective way to prevemnt this from happening.
Also remember that if the worst happens and your account is somehow compromised, any lossses will have to be taken by the bank and not you, so long as you can show that you haven't been reckless with your online security. Following the above measurs will show that you have taken all reasonable precauttions, and so will not be liable for any lossees that may occur, however unliekly.
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