Internet Banking Security Tips For Savings, Checking and Business Accounts

In this guide, I will share with you some powerful Internet Banking security tips to keep your Savings, Checking and Business accounts safe.

I encourage you to read this to the end if you don’t want to lose your money this festive season.

Financial Technology At It’s Peak

Internet Banking, next to Mobile Banking, is one of the financial technologies that has revolutionized the banking industry across the globe.

The freedom and many benefits that comes with it is incredible. Imagine being able to deposit, transfer and make payments in millions of dollars, right from your mobile phone or computer.

That’s just one of the numerous benefits. You can make international transfers, block your ATM cards or order a new one, view your transaction history, download statements and chat with your bank’s customer care via their online banking platform.

Those of us who were born in the era when cash was the reigning champ can fully testify to the wonders of online banking. If not for anything, the fact that we can now carry large sums of money on us without having to constantly look over our shoulders.

But as the year draws to an end and the festive season approaches (which is usually a time of so much online shopping), I find it worthy to share with you some financial security tips to keep your Individual, Business and Corporate account details safe.

So let’s get to it.

Financial Security Tips To Keep Your Bank Accounts Safe Online

1. Beware Of Cloned Phishing Websites And Apps

Cloned websites are websites designed to look exactly like another. Scammers often clone internet banking platforms to steal credit card details, ID, login details and one time passwords (OTP) or tokens from naïve bank customers.

Just a few months ago, a website came up, claiming to be UNAFRICA’s website and was promising $25,000 business grant and $10,000 training grant to young African entrepreneurs.

They so much cloned the original site that by the time many realized it, they’ve been duped. And their IDs stolen.

Now due to the efforts of domain registrars today, it’s not always easy to create a domain name that is very similar to that of an already existing bank. But you should still be careful of these things. Criminals always have their way around.

How to spot a cloned website easily and fast is through the url. Watch out for hyphens, extra characters and letters as well as unfamiliar extensions (for instance ibb-ank.freexzywebhost.com.zp or ibbank.freexyzwebhost.com.zp)

No real bank will ever have such free registered/hosted .freexyzwebhost.com.zp in it’s url. Don’t fall for such cheap scams.

2. Learn How To Instantly Block Your Account And ATM Card With USSD Code And Save The Block Code In Your Contacts

Doing this will save you from so many undue headache. The moment you notice you have exposed your banking details, all you need do is quickly locate the account blocking code in your contacts and dial it. Instantly the account/ATM card will be blocked.

Always dial the code as fast as you can, before calling your bank’s customer service phone number.

3. Get A Prepaid Card Specifically For Shopping Online

The most beautiful thing about owning a prepaid card like the UBA Africard is that it is not tied to a particular bank account. Even if you lose it, the only thing anyone can get from it is how much you loaded on the card, not everything you have in your account.

What’s even more interesting is that you can always load only the amount of money you want to spend online per time on it. There’s no minimum amount to have on it, and you can always fund it with your local currency (depending on your country) or USD.

For almost two years now, I have never used any ATM card directly tied to my personal bank account and I have been perfectly fine. I’ve never had to worry about money disappearing from my account.

4. Do Not Save Your Internet Banking Login Details With An Untrustworthy Password Manager App

For me, if it’s not the Google Password Manager, my response is always “thank you very much, but I’ll pass”

Always go through the reviews of any password manager you want to use on Play Store or Apple Store.

Do not only pay attention to the positive reviews. Some of them are either computer generated replies or sponsored reviews. Always check the negative reviews also before deciding whether to download and use it or not.

5. Do Not Use A Cyber Café To Sign Into Your Internet Banking Account

Several public networks, computer browsers etc., used at cafes can actually be hacked by hacked and programmed to collect people’s data.

If you must use a café for such sensitive activities as online banking, ensure you go with your own laptop.

This is one of the internet banking security tips you should always bear in mind.

6. Report Any Suspicious Activity To Your Bank

Once you notice any suspicious activity on your account, for instance an OTP sent to your phone without you performing any transaction online, reach out to your bank immediately.

If possible block the account temporarily immediately.

Also, under no circumstance are you to give anyone your OTP, PIN, CVV and several others. Don’t even put your friends under necessary pressure to scam you afterwards by disclosing these things to them.

7. Cut Down On Your Greed

Apart from ignorance, greed is the number one reason people easily fall for scams.

Imagine getting a text or email “congratulations, you have been pre-qualified to receive $10,000 Covid19 grant from World Bank/government. Simply reply this email/text with your account number, login ID, full name, address, social security number (or BVN depending on your country), date of birth, recent passport photograph and ID”

Instead of rushing to reply with all of those information to get the free money, you should ask, “if the government or World Bank, doesn’t already have such information about me, how then did they prequalify ‘me’ for the grant?”

Is it possible for someone who doesn’t already know you that much to qualify you in particular for such offers?

Would you do that if you were the head of such an organization?

Don’t be fooled.

Final Words On The Internet Banking Security Tips For You

Financial security like I always say, is every man’s business. Do not disclose your banking details to anyone.

Follow the internet banking security tips shared here to keep your Savings, Checking and Business accounts safe.

Also Read:

• Standard Chartered Bank Account Blocking Code
• Stanbic IBTC Bank account blocking code
• Sterling Bank Account Blocking Code
• Union Bank Account Blocking Code
• Keystone Bank Account Blocking Code
• First Bank Account Blocking Code: How To Block And Unblock Your First Bank Account and ATM Card
• Ecobank Account Blocking Code
• Wema Bank Account Blocking Code
• Access Bank Account Blocking Code: How To Block And Unblock Your Access Bank Account and ATM Card
• Zenith Bank Account Blocking Code: How To Block and Unblock Zenith Bank Account and Debit Card
• UBA Account Blocking Code: How To Block and Unblock UBA Account and Debit Card
• Polaris Bank account blocking code: how to block and unblock Polaris Bank account
• Heritage Bank account blocking code
• GTBank account blocking code
• How to open a business or corporate bank account in Nigeria
• FCMB account blocking code