Bank Zero’s tips for banking safely
There is no worse feeling than being the subject of a financial crime – no matter whether it is SIM swaps, phishing, App-jacking or stolen cards.
The thought of being helpless as criminals rack up expensive purchases on your cards is sickening.
Even worse is when criminals directly access your accounts via App or Internet banking.
This is a nasty and traumatic experience – and while it is a good start to avoid sharing your key banking details with anyone, financial crimes are getting more complex.
App jackers are a great example of this.
These financial criminals get access to your unlocked phone and can then work out your net worth and where your money is kept.
To protect you against more advanced financial criminals, Bank Zero provides the following advice for all South Africans:
- SMS OTPs are vulnerable to SIM swaps
Criminals armed with your unlocked phone can (with some skill) reset your online banking password or App PIN. Victims are in the dark – because the phone is gone, and instead criminals get your SMS OTPs.
By the time you complete your own SIM swap and then pair on another phone, it’s way too late. Bank Zero does it differently: your SMS OTP also goes to a BACK UP CELL number enabling you to immediately pair on another phone.
This means you don’t have that agonising wait for several hours. Once paired on another phone, simply delete your stolen phone pairing – the criminals are immediately disarmed!
- Keep your long money in time-locked cash investments
Notice deposits offer locks from 7 to 45 days, and don’t let you draw from these accounts before the notice period has expired.
Criminals will see your cash, but they can’t access it for many days, at which point you will hopefully have realised that they are trying to rob you.
- Say no to available balances
Criminals will target your available balance – even if that means putting you into card debt and ruining your home loan.
This is why it is better to use a savings account for emergencies and lock the rest of your financial accounts and products away.
- Avoid overdrafts at all costs
Overdrafts are already expensive – and when cybercriminals target you, your available overdraft can be used to put you into crippling debt.
If you have an overdraft because you’re scared you might forget a debit order, Bank Zero pre-warns you of upcoming debit orders.
It also allows you another business day to correct your balance without that debit order bouncing.
- Split your banking from day-to-day banking and loans
Keep your loans at separate institutions and ensure you don’t have digital access to these finances.
This ensures that even if criminals breach your bank account, they are limited in what they can access.
- Bank cards differ significantly in security
Bank Zero has no card fraud thanks to its groundbreaking card patents.
It also requires authorisations on ALL online cards transactions and has a unique secure subscription management tool.
- Biometrics prevents phishing losses
Be sure your bank uses their own biometrics in addition to your phone biometrics.
Your bank should only let new devices access your accounts after validating your biometric information – like a fingerprint or facials. This is different from using phone biometrics to login (instead of PINs) which most banks do. New device pairings happen after victims are phished, and without any biometrics check, criminals clear your accounts out.
Bank Zero has no phishing losses because all new device pairings are facial-biometrics-checked before unlocking all transactions.
- Get app notifications instead of SMS notifications
SMS notifications are typically sent by banks only if transactions are above certain thresholds – thus potentially enabling criminals to steal your money without you ever knowing it.
Furthermore, SIM swaps are also common with phishing – and in this case, by the time you realise something has gone wrong, it is usually too late.
Bank Zero offers App and email notifications without thresholds, meaning you always see all your money movements and other actions like phone pairing, recipients changes and more.
This ensures SIM swaps have little to no impact on you.
Bank smarter with Bank Zero
With the above knowledge, you can limit your losses to what you have in your day-to-day bank account.
It is easy to onboard these tips when banking with Bank Zero, as it comes with various native systems and solutions that help you protect your financial data to unprecedented degrees.
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