To prevent escalation of financial crime and identity theft, The State Bank of India (SBI) has committed to levelling up email OTP authentication, which will now trigger security notifications when onboarding is taking place and deliver better identity account management.
Customers will receive the notification to their registered email account warning them if a transaction is being made through online banking.
The SBI has also issued some helpful advice to all its current and potential customers to remind them not to hand over any personal information, card details or password to someone pretending to work for the bank, as the SBI will never request this information over email, text or phone.
The warning stressed the high risk of hackers using this method to fraudulently access accounts, make illegitimate transactions or use emotional tactics to persuade customers to depart with money.
To activate the alert notifications, SBI customers must download online banking, logging in to their account by entering their User ID and password. Under the ‘profile’ section, there will be ‘high security’ options. Go on to the OTP over SMS and email and confirm the application.
Once the SBI Secure OTP application has been made, transactions that require OTP through Yono Lite SBI version 4.2.0 will prompt an action to verify the user.
SBI provides regular comprehensive guidelines for customers on navigating online banking and making safe digital transactions, including the advice to renew unique and complex passwords containing a variety of characters and never make a obvious record or disclose personal bank information that could allow hackers to compromise your account.
SBI also advises to disable the ‘Auto Save’ or ‘Remember’ functions on your device to avoid storing of user ID and passwords. Other protective measures ABI have taken in the past have been to tokenise blockchain card payments as digital transactions have skyrocketed in popularity. Crypto transactions are regarded to be safer on the blockchain than typical currency payments because the card data is not made available to the merchant during the transaction.
Previously, ABI also trialled an OTP one-time login to ensure the enhanced safety and security of accounts.
