User Awareness of Security Features in Internet Banking-An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

In the banking sector, technology and competition have increased the choice of customers regarding banking products and providers. As a result various electronic delivery channels are increasingly used by banks for delivering their products and services at the convenience of customers at low cost. Internet Banking (IB) is one among them. IB refers to a banking transaction routed through internet. It is a method of banking that allows a customer to perform banking transactions through a bank's website hosted in the internet. The objective of the study was to understand customer awareness of IB security features adopted by banks and to investigate whether there is any association between customer awareness and their level of computer knowledge. Respondents were asked to state whether they are aware or not of the ten security features used by banks to safeguard their customers from the risk of fraud associated with the use of IB. It is found that majority of the respondents have awareness of all the security features except padlock symbol. Significant association is also found between awareness of Verisign, Padlock Symbol, The letter 's' in the URL, Virtual Key board and level of computer knowledge of the respondents.