How does the typical U.S. consumer make sure the online banking website he’s using is legitimate? He checks that the website looks familiar -- that all the branding, colors and layout are similar to what he’s seen before. That’s a finding of a survey conducted by Melbourne IT, a global domain registrar and digital brand services company. The firm polled 1,007 U.S. consumers aged 18 to 55 about their e-commerce and online banking habits. Obviously this is not comforting – fraudsters have proven they can easily create convincingly real-looking bank websites. In a recent, typical phishing expedition, in September, online banking customers of Southbridge Savings Bank received an email purporting to be from the bank that told them that they needed to update their account information. The email included a link to a fake copy of the bank’s website, where customers were asked to enter their user name, password and other identifying information.
But while almost half (47%) use the “looks familiar” litmus test, a surprisingly large percentage – 46% -- say they check for a padlock symbol on their web browser. This is another element that can be scammed. A solid 42% look for the prefix https:// in front of the web address.
Forty-five percent check to make sure the web address at the top is correct; this is the number that supports Melbourne IT’s business of registering domain names. If customers are willing and able to verify that a bank’s URL is correct, that might make the approximately $200,000 annual expense of registering and maintaining a top-level domain name, such as onlinebanking.hsbc, worthwhile. Only 6% admitted that they don’t check anything before proceeding to online bank – surely there’s an unwillingness to disclose here.
The survey also found that 75% of U.S. consumers are confident that their banking or financial information is secure when they make online transactions, while 20% are not confident (5% said they don’t know or can’t judge).
Asked about their online shopping habits, the largest group, 25%, said they shop online several times a year, 24% said a few times a month, 12% said a few times a week. Among those that online shop less than once a month, 36% said they are concerned about the security of their information and money.
Despite their concerns about security, these consumers seem to want the websites they visit to store some information about them – 49% said they prefer to visit websites that remember their preferences and display information relevant to them, 35% said they don’t care if the website is personalized or not, and 16% say they prefer to use websites that don’t know their preferences and display generic information.
