off-topic • Re: Online Banking on PC vs Telephone

For me, in the mobile banking app, paying someone is divided into two steps:

• setting up a payment destination.
• actually transferring the money.

The first of these does include some checks. The app asks me where I got the details of the account from. So far, the only visible effect of different selections has been to change an on screen warning about being aware of scammers. It also asks me for the name of the person or organisation and checks for a match between that name and the one held against the destination sort code and account number. There is some support for approximate matching but it is fairly cautious. Overall, it isn't too onerous and this part only needs to be completed before the first payment.

Once the destination is setup, making payments is very convenient - I only have to provide the amount and date and I am not asked any further questions.

On telephony, it struck me that some kind of PKI should have been mandated as a condition of VOIP being interconnected to the PSTN, i.e. to use a presentation number, which someone may possibly use to work out if the calling organisation is who they claim to be, a certificate must be presented as part of the session initiation, rather like TLS. With so many parties involved, though, and no doubt some corruption, it then presumably becomes a problem of key management rather than technology.

At the moment, though, the only advice I can think to give anyone is to never disclose personal information and certainly not attempt to transfer any money or give out any card details on an incoming call. I think this is the advice we should offer absolutely everyone.

Statistics: Posted by Coeus — Tue Jul 09, 2024 9:03 am

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