Industry Updates

'SAMENA Daily' - News

UAE has higher proportion of online banking customers than UK

The UAE has a higher proportion of online banking customers than the UK and a big part of that number is the result of the IT infrastructure available in the UAE, Mario Camara, Chief Executive Officer of Swissquote Middle East and Asia, told Gulf News
 
The Swiss bank is a leading provider of online financial services and the bank has two offices in the UAE.
 
Quoting the Internet World Stats website, which monitors internet usage around the globe, he said that more than 75 per cent of the UAE bank account holders use online financial services than their counterparts in the UK (under 60 per cent). Better IT infrastructure may account for part of “such difference”, but Swissquote believes that a bigger factor is the level of sophistication of UAE banking customers.
 
More than 422,000 global bank customers accessed financial services online during 2012.
Across the board, GCC residents’ internet use is growing at a faster pace than almost anywhere else in the world and the UAE accounts for a big part of that growth.
 
“That means, every day we gain a disproportionate amount of online shoppers, social media participants and entertainment media downloader’s. It also means we gain an equally disproportionate amount of online banking customers,” he said.
The clearest advantage of online banking to the public is convenience, he said and added that being able to manage your finances from your home, office or wherever you may be, if your bank offers a good portable device banking platform.
 
However, there are also risks. According to security firm Kaspersky Lab, every fifth phishing attack registered between May 2012 and late April 2013 targeted users of banks and other financial organisations. Phishing is an attempt to fraudulently gain usernames and passwords.
 
According to the results of a global survey conducted in spring 2013 by B2B International and Kaspersky Lab, about 37 per cent of all banks surveyed were affected by phishing attacks at least once over the previous 12 months.
 
When asked how do banks tackle these issues and boost confidence in customers, he said that he is not surprised that only one fifth of phishing attacks targeted financial customers. Following Willie Suttons’ maxim, all phishing should target banking customers since “that’s where the money is.”
 
But that number actually tells you something, he said. Online banks, as well as brick and mortar banks which offer online solutions, are at the forefront of the fight against phishing. Most anti-phishing and phishing awareness campaigns are conducted by banks and, in the online world, are the institutions with the best organized and most robust anti online fraud departments.
 
Online bank security is a”top concern” in the industry and the industry response is tackling the issue. “The global growth of online banking service use demonstrates that the industry has done a very good job of reassuring the public that online banking is safe,” he said.


Source: http://www.zawya.com/story/UAE_has_higher_proportion_of_online_banking_customers_than_UK-GN_05082013_060807/

ATTENTION