Bankers group tries to increase use of Web site seal
Computerworld - In the wake of a government warning issued last month about fake bank Web sites conning consumers out of private information, the American Bankers Association (ABA) yesterday launched a campaign to increase awareness of a seal of approval that it says can be used to verify which online banks are real and which are fake.
The SiteCertain seal offered by the ABA lets banks include a link on their Web sites that connects consumers to a secure online database with instructions on how to ensure that they're dealing with a bona fide financial institution. But the seal, which debuted early last year, currently is being used by only about 300 of the 10,000 or so banks in the U.S.
"I don't know that it means that much to customers," said Brooke Newcomb, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. "There's just too many seals of approval out there." Newcomb added that most consumers are still reluctant to process financial transactions online and said the presence - or absence - of a seal such as the ABA's isn't likely to make a big difference to them.
Britton & Koontz First National Bank in Natchez, Miss., has featured the seal on the home page of its Web site since the ABA made SiteCertain available. But no customers have commented on it yet, according to Page Ogden, the bank's president and CEO.
"I don't really know how much effect it has at this time," Ogden said. "But this kind of thing is going to become more and more important."
Last month, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) warned that some customers have provided financial information to Web sites that they thought were legitimate online banks, only to find that they were "spoof" sites designed to mimic the actual ones. That creates the potential for thefts of sensitive information such as account numbers and access codes, the OCC said (see story).
As a result of the OCC's action, banks are waking up to the increasing risk that their sites will be spoofed and that their customers could be defrauded, said Stephen Schutze, e-strategies director at the Washington-based ABA. He also said banks are signing up for the SiteCertain certification program in increasing numbers.
"Sometimes it takes something like a warning from the OCC that says, 'Hey, there's bad guys out there trying to take your customers' money,' " Schutze said.
But according to analyst George Barto, an online banking expert at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Group Inc., spoofers who want to



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- End to End Unified Fabric TCO Calculator
- This tool will help you demonstrate financial justification for a unified fabric networking solution.
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- Streamline Compliance and Increase ROI
- Streamline, simplify, and automate compliance related activities; especially those that impact multiple business units. This white paper from NetIQ, outlines solutions that will... All Financial Services White Papers
- Banking on the Mainframe
- This presentation will look at banking application issues and provide examples on how banks and financial market clients are responding to these challenges.
- Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
- Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
- Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn... All Financial Services Webcasts