The consumer group Which? says five of the UK's biggest banks and building societies consistently scored poorly in its security test, including Lloyds and Santander
Which? has criticised some of Britain's biggest banks for failing to invest in security systems that would better protect their customers from fraudsters.
Against a backdrop of booming bank fraud, Which? tested the UK's 11 biggest banks and building societies and found that the security at five of them was still not good enough.
Which? said Halifax, its sister brand Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, Santander and TSB had "consistently scored poorly" over the four years it had been analysing their security measures, and continued to do so as none of them offered two-factor authentication at login, despite having the technology to do so.
In 2014-15, banking fraud losses soared by 64% to £133.5m for online banking, and by 28% to £323.3m for phone banking, the consumer group said. It added that too many customers were still being let down by their bank's security.
Which? has called on the industry to make greater use of two-factor authentication at the login stage of online banking. This combines two identity checks – typically a password or pin plus a single-use pass code sent via a card reader or mobile phone.
In its most recent test, carried out in August, Which? found that only five of the 11 banks had adopted such security checks to protect customers.
In September, Which? used its super-complaint powers to call on the financial regulator to investigate whether banks could do more to protect people who are tricked into transferring money to a fraudster. Too often, fraud victims are not being refunded by banks and in some cases have lost in excess of £100,000
Alex Neill from Which? said: "Online banking is increasingly part of our daily lives, and at the same time online scams are becoming more sophisticated. People can only do so much to protect themselves from fraud – it's time for banks to shoulder more of the responsibility and introduce extra protections to safeguard their customers."
In the test, First Direct and HSBC were given the highest security scores, closely followed by Barclays, M&S Bank and Nationwide.
TSB, which received the lowest score, said: "It is our number one priority to offer safe and secure banking facilities for our customers across all of our products and services. To achieve this we maintain complex and multilayered fraud prevention controls which will not be visible to the customer – or reflected in this survey. We continually review and improve our services to ensure they remain robust and fit for purpose."
Lloyds, meanwhile, said the research did not accurate reflect "the highly sophisticated security our customers benefit from".
0 comments: