Close fraud loopholes
YOU can imagine how flustered the banks were when we mentioned our investigation into their newfangled security features.
They warned that by publishing the results, we’d reveal to fraudsters the secrets to cracking the fingerprint scanners, facial recognition and voice passwords firms use to protect accounts.
It was a thinly-veiled threat: do not print your article because you will do more harm than good.
Well, Money Mail begged to differ. Our findings in Germany were so disturbing that we were left with no option but to expose them. You deserve to know the truth.
Banks are shutting ten branches a week on the basis that everyone does their banking on the internet or mobile phone these days (which is wrong and insulting — but that’s a topic for another day).
To give them credit, the apps they’ve created to do the job of a counter clerk are terrific. You can pay friends, check balances and track spending in seconds from your sofa. And now, thanks to modern mobiles, you don’t always need a password, either. By using the sensors and cameras on smartphones, banks have undoubtedly made life easier for customers and call centres, where staff must field hundreds of calls about forgotten passwords every day.
But with cyber-crime on the rise, the big attraction was always the better security. Even the most cunning crooks would struggle to forge a fingerprint or replicate someone’s face . . . wouldn’t they?
It took Ben Schlabs, of Security Research Labs in Berlin — the good guys of the hacking world — a few hours and £50 of glue, pens and circuit boards to give the lie to that assumption. Ben agreed to help Money Mail because he shares our concerns that, as online fraud hits stratospheric levels and banks increasingly wash their hands of it, we need even stronger protection than biometrics.
We withheld vital information from our story starting on page 35 because we don’t want criminals repeating Ben’s tests.
Now banks must do their part. The loopholes we exposed must be fixed — or guarded against with a second layer of security.
In the long-term, that may mean redesigning the mobile phone scanners for fingerprints, irises and faces so they no longer get tricked by counterfeits.
For now, biometrics should be seen as only the first level of security. All banks must ensure, as some already do, that you cannot make a payment without both a fingerprint scan AND entering a normal password.
Debt trap
PARENTS and grandparents who thought the debt nightmare facing students couldn’t get any worse ought to read page 47.
Not only do students in England face graduating £50,000 in debt — at a totally unjustifiable interest rate of 6.1 pc — but one of Britain’s biggest banks will sting them as soon as they leave university.
Money Mail has long advised families to hunt down student accounts with the biggest interestfree overdrafts. On that score, HSBC, which offers £3,000 in the third year of study, is one of the most attractive.
Yet, as soon as youngsters leave university, they’re moved to its graduate account, where the interest-free overdraft is capped at £1,500. They’re clobbered with 19.9pc interest on the difference. No other bank imposes this cliff edge (though Santander restricts borrowing for postgraduates). Until HSBC removes that trap, I couldn’t recommend it to 18-yearolds about to start a course.
If you’ve got family mulling over this important decision, I suggest you do the same.
Blame BA bosses
I OWE an apology to British Airways staff. A few weeks ago, this column argued that BA is guilty of charging a premium for a budget service, and must either cut prices accordingly or bring back that lost customer service ethos by asking staff to pull up their socks.
Most of the issues at BA appear to stem from cost-cutting made by top dogs, such as 51-year-old Spanish chief exec Alex Cruz.
The vast majority of air hostesses, pilots, check-in attendants and baggage staff have been let down by issues out of their control. So pull your socks up, BA bosses — and show your staff and customers the respect they deserve.