In today’s mobile-centric world, using mobile phones for Internet banking is standard practice for most people, but do customers know they could be at risk of a new type of scam?

SIM swap fraud, where scammers cancel and re-activate new SIM cards to hack into bank accounts, is reportedly on the rise.

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The latest bank in the UK to fall victim to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was HSBC. It claimed that no customer data was compromised. In July last year, RBS and NatWest were also hit by DDoS attacks, which flooded their websites with traffic, temporarily shutting them down. This resulted in bad publicity and complaints from many customers. Fortunately, customer accounts were not compromised so the bad publicity was all the damage the attack caused.

DDoS attacks, where bad guys flood a website with so much work that they fold under the pressure, aren’t even strictly a security issue on their own. Unless the DDoS is part of a recipe to steal stuff, it’s a nuisance that is more about someone flexing their muscles than doing damage. Luckily in the cases of RBS, NatWest, and HSBC, no data was stolen; however, they do raise the question of whether online banking is secure. So is there a security issue at hand?

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All those who have a habit of losing their credit cards, only to end up somewhere without a means to pay, rejoice!

Barclaycard has announced a new service, UK’s first, which allows for the instant replacement of a lost credit card -- first virtually, followed by a real card replacement.

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"Blockchain is ready to take centre stage", declared a recent Goldman Sachs report, just one of many indications that this virtual system has captured the attention of the financial services industry.

It is certain that Blockchain has the potential to transform centuries-old mechanisms for transferring money. Our latest research, which surveyed over 300 banking executives on the current payments landscape across Europe, found that cryptocurrency and Blockchain technologies are now seen as real drivers for change.

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Not only does every other top manager make payments from corporate accounts via mobile banking, but it was also discovered that over 30 percent of companies use mobile devices to access corporate bank accounts and to make financial transactions.

Those are the result of a recent joint survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International.

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A grim future awaits the PIN code, if Brits are to be believed. According to a recent survey, a majority of Brits believe PIN will be a thing of the past, and soon.

In a survey of 2,000 UK banking customers, financial technology company Intelligent Environments has found that two thirds of Brits (67 percent) believe the PIN will soon be obsolete. When those respondents were asked to predict how quickly this might happen, the average response was just under five years.

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Increasingly the security industry is looking for alternatives to the hard to manage and all too easily compromised password.

Biometrics like fingerprints and retinal scans are starting to make ground, but California-based two-factor authentication specialist  SecureAuth has announced a new partnership with BehavioSec which aims to use behavioral analysis as a security tool.

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People are becoming increasingly concerned about their security. They use two-step authentication, login alerts, and third-party security services to better protect their email and social media accounts. One would hope for a similar -- if not more secure -- level of protection from our banks. After all, this is the place where we put most of our earnings and savings. However, apparently we are all mistaken. Mobile security firm Appvigil is reporting that as many as 70 percent of the top 100 mobile banking apps on the Android operating system in the APAC region are vulnerable to security attacks and data leaks. Don’t live in the said region? That’s no reason to relax. The report further pinpoints vulnerabilities in mobile banking apps found in other regions as well.

The security firm tested the mobile banking apps of the top 29 Indian banks and 71 more in the Asia Pacific region and the results are staggeringly bad. "Most of the mobile banking apps failed and many didn’t employ even the basic security checks expected. The communication between the apps & their servers is still in the unencrypted format i.e. in HTTP instead of HTTPS", the report reveals.

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Online banking feels like an accepted channel for today’s consumers, especially compared with its latest mobile incarnation. Yet, with online attacks becoming more sophisticated, banks must remain vigilant by implementing technology defenses while enabling the online channel to provide the convenience that customers now expect. However, with their technology defenses, banks must be wary of putting both existing and prospective customers off with tedious password-enabled security measures. Creating a delicate balance between strong security and convenient access is an ongoing challenge.

Recent independent research commissioned by Ping Identity discovered that more than a third of customers would abandon their bank altogether for an experience that combined both security and convenience. Furthermore, only 28.7 percent of respondents described themselves as 'very loyal' to their bank. Banks are clearly walking a fine line with their customers.

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