At Standard Bank Group we take the security of customers' money and information very seriously, especially on self-service channels such as cellphone banking (currently available only to customers in South Africa).
There has been some talk of the service not being secure as some transactions do not require a PIN. We'd like to put their minds at ease and put this in context.
Early last year we asked cellphone banking users what they thought of the existing offering. At the time, customers said they would prefer to do basic non-value transactions without the need for a PIN. We tested this suggestion and found that some transactions, such as balances and prepaid, to your own cellphones were low risk transactions that we were comfortable to offer without requiring a PIN.
All other transactions require users to enter a PIN selected by the customer (called a CSP) to be able to transact.
Ironically, research done after we implemented this change showed users perceived this new process to be insecure.
It is extremely important for users to feel secure when using cellphone banking, we are working to re-instate the CSP requirement. This is not to say that the service is currently insecure. It remains secure as all high risk transactions are currently protected by a CSP.
This change will be introduced in September 2011.
Do you use cellphone banking and still have security concerns? Leave a comment here telling us what concerns you.
