The incorporation of new technologies has allowed banking institutions to offer a large number of online services to their clients, quickly and easily, and with great security guarantees: this is what is known as electronic banking, and it is increasingly gaining more weight in the financial market.
Furthermore, in these times of pandemic, where travel and personal management have been reduced to a minimum, it is essential to know how to use the telematic services offered by the Banks to correctly manage our finances, both in the personal and professional spheres, and to take advantage of the benefits that come with it, for example, saving waiting time and travel.
If you are not yet using online banking for your personal finances or to manage your small business, I encourage you to continue reading to learn how to take advantage of it.
What does it mean to use Electronic Banking?
Nowadays, all banks have a platform on their website from which, after having identified ourselves with a secure username and password, we can carry out practically the same tasks as in a physical office: check the balances and movements of our accounts, make payments or transfers, pay our taxes, open new accounts, apply for credit cards or loans, make contributions to our pension plan..., but also with a series of advantages over traditional banking:
24/7 availability : forget about rigid banking hours and long waits at the teller windows. You can carry out all your transactions easily at any time and from anywhere, simply with your computer or mobile phone.
Savings on fees : many of the procedures that incur a fee if carried out in a physical office are completely free in online banking.
Greater transparency in contract terms. All information should be available on the website, and usually in clearer and more concise terms.
They have online help or a personal manager who provides personalized support to each client.
What payment methods are available?
In general, we can classify payment systems into three main categories: immediate payment systems, deferred payment systems and prepaid systems.
The immediate payment system is the one we usually use in our daily operations when we pay in cash. But we must bear in mind that not only banknotes and coins are considered cash, but also bank checks issued to bearer or any other means, physical or electronic, intended as payment to bearer.
There are legal restrictions on cash payments in transactions where one or both parties is a company or professional. Currently, they are limited to €2,500, but in the future, regulations are expected to limit the maximum amount to €1,000.
Another immediate payment system would be transfers, which are managed through a supra-banking system, which in Spain is called SNCE and in the Eurozone the Target2 System, or direct debits.
As for deferred payment systems, a loan or a mortgage are examples of such instruments, in which the bank advances a sum of money to a client, who must return it over a more or less long period of time, in addition to the interest that has been generated in that interval. A credit card is also another example of a deferred payment method.
On the other hand, prepaid systems consist of anticipating and reserving a certain amount at a certain time in order to proceed with the corresponding consumption at other later times. This retention or loading of the money is usually carried out through a prepaid card, which is a particular case of a debit card (the maximum amount to be spent in a given period would have to be limited).
As for electronic payment systems, we can classify them as:
Bank cards : whether debit, credit, prepaid or loyalty cards.
Electronic money : money that has no physical support and can be transferred through telematic means, such as bitcoin, among other cybercurrencies.
Electronic payment orders : there is still no fully functional alternative to traditional cheques or promissory notes, although in some countries options are being developed in this regard, for example, in some Latin American countries the echeq has been implemented, managed from virtual banking.
Mobile payment : New mobile phones support the functionality of making payments through them, using NFC technology, which allows data to be transmitted between devices that are very close.
electronic banking
There are also online payment platforms that have gained wide acceptance. The world leader is PayPal, which allows payments and money transfers between individuals or companies. The great advantage is that it is not necessary to transmit confidential data such as account or card numbers, making it easy and safe to use. Some statistics indicate that there are more than 100 million users worldwide.
Electronic Banking Operations
The range of services that can be provided through electronic kuwait travel agency whatsapp number banking is very broad, since most of the operations carried out in the physical offices of financial institutions can be emulated, provided that the user can be correctly identified when required by current regulations. In any case, it is common for technology to already offer all possible solutions to provide the necessary services. The operations that can be carried out through electronic banking can be classified, from the entity's point of view, as:
Asset operations : Credits, loans, financial leases, bank, financial and certification discounts, overdraft cancellation, factoring and confirming.
Passive operations : Demand and term deposits, structured deposits, current accounts, certificates of deposits.
Financial intermediation operations : in this type of operation, entities carry out contact work between persons or entities requesting and offering funds, for example, acquisition of public debt, investments in private fixed income, investments in variable income, investment funds and pension plans, life insurance and savings plans or derivative products.
Security in the use of electronic banking
Financial institutions must guarantee maximum security in all their applications and, similarly, users must adopt the necessary measures to prevent cyberattacks. All of this requires the analysis of possible threats, vulnerabilities, probability of attacks and their impact, which are detailed in a Security Plan that covers all the weak points of the system.
The main threats that can affect computer systems can be classified as:
Physical threats: possible power supply failures (not due to direct human intervention), adverse weather conditions (droughts, extreme humidity, etc.) or natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, fires, etc.). Systems should have prevention mechanisms against their effects.
Logical threats: These refer to programming errors or errors in information transmission systems that may be exposed and lead to illegal attacks against the computer system.
Cybercrime: direct and programmed attacks, aimed at the system, carried out by people seeking personal gain or simply to cause harm to the organization. In most cases, they will take advantage of the materialization of physical or logical threats.
The main security measures that online banking has implemented to combat these threats are: use of antivirus, choice of complex passwords, use of firewalls, use of encryption software, limitation of access to data based on profile types, etc., as well as physical measures, such as making backup copies, hardware and software redundancy or protection against physical risks, among others.
Despite these security measures, new crimes related to electronic banking continue to appear, such as the following:
Phishing , which consists of sending messages to an entity's clients impersonating its corporate image, in order to get them to provide personal and sensitive information, either by SMS, email, through fake web pages or phone calls.
Smishing is a specific type of phishing that relies on fraudulent email messages (SMS or, for example, WhatsApp).
Pharming , in which cybercriminals exploit a website in such a way that traffic through it is intercepted, allowing them to steal confidential information.
Key loggers , elements that track and record the keys that a user presses on their computer, to use them for criminal purposes.
Financial institutions need to proactively anticipate and detect these practices, using statistical methods to detect suspicious patterns or, more recently, systems based on artificial intelligence, which learn from themselves, to be increasingly effective in detecting this type of fraudulent behavior. This means that electronic banking offers its users greater security every time.