Online Banking: How to protect yourself

Identity theft happens when criminals deliberately set out to gather and collect someone else's information such as their name, date of birth, address where they live. This information can be found on documents often thrown into the bin or if that person's online account has been hacked.

After identity theft happens, the thief/criminal usually goes on to commit identity fraud. Identity fraud is the deliberate use of someone else's identity to commit a financial crime by buying goods/services, pretending to be someone else, using their card/bank details.

Here are strategies to help protect you against identity theft and fraud while banking online:

If you receive an email or a phone call keep in mind that a bank or credit card company will never asks for your PIN or password or account numbers. You should delete the email or end the phone call immediately.

Use strong passwords and change/update them regularly on websites that hold your account details to make it more difficult for others to access your account.

Manually type in the URL/website address of the place where you want to shop online. Sometimes just searching for a store can lead you to visiting websites that look like the place you want to buy from but they are not authentic.

Ensure your computer has the most up-to-date software, anti-virus, anti-spy and a firewall to protect your details.