Online banking and identity theft: who carries the risk?

摘要

Today, Identity theft is a reality. It entails devastating effects for organizations, such as banks, as well as their clients, resulting in a continuous nightmare for all parties concerned. Conducting banking transactions over the Internet frequently highlights problems experienced by clients regarding unauthorized transactions. With regard to the criminal and civil liability of the bank and that of the clients; the role of regulatory controls such as contractual obligations, legal issues and policies needs to be well understood. Organizations and their clients should clearly understand the binding force of these regulatory controls. Developing countries most often experience a lack of regulatory controls such as legal instruments. Societies at large in developing countries have an inadequate level of literacy when using online banking systems. It is clear that unless the organization takes all the necessary and reasonable steps to educate its clients in developing countries, it stands a risk of paying hefty damages for the loss of money online. The focus in this paper is on the impact of identity theft in developing countries. However, the contribution made by the paper is equally important for developed countries.