Barclays campaigns to take on fraudsters

I suggested that idea here at Finextra in January 2016: http://bit.ly/2qRMS1U

A million dollar idea - the card switch

Yep - the "customer controls" wavefront is upon us. Not just for cards, but for all manner of consent/permission management, particularly as PSD2 and GDPR become reality over the next few years.

The include/block lists in PSD1 & 2 seem to have been late in arriving in the UK. So those customer controls have not yet made a mark. Soon, perhaps.

Anyone taken the "digitally safe" quiz yet? Http://www.barclays.co.uk/security/digitally-safe-quiz/

I think it told me I was too paranoid for not trusting phone numbers in SMS messages.

So the message from Barclays to their customers is: "We cannot protect you from fraud, but it's costing us so much that we would rather ruin your user experience".

I cannot see the majority of cardholders switching on and off all the time, especially as online card payments are becoming more essential than card-present payments.

Education is important but without incentive to act it will only ever be limited in effectiveness. How do we get consumers (and businesses) to care enough about digital security?

@JW - Customer should not "care" about security - it must be invisible and work seamlessly in the background. Also, UX is important - I don't want my card being simply blocked when I try to use it overseas. In 2017, there are numerous ways for the bank and customer to deal with such scenarios in a elegant and easy way.

Agree with AP! As a customer, I don't want to go beyond most basic security and for me UX is at most importance. For online payments, VbV/MSC is that basic level - cannot be asked to do any more. If the bank doesn't want to introduce VbV/MSC for some reason - not my problem. If the bank cannot ensure secuity of my funds - I move to another bank.

@AP, I think customers have a part to play. For example Jeremy Clarkson's decision 10 years ago to publicise his sort code and account number in the belief that people could only make payments to him, resulting in a direct debit falsely set up against that account.

I don't disagree with the other anonymous responder that user experience is also important and security measures which are disproportionate will not gain customer buy-in (my point around incentivisation). 

In the world of e-mail, we continually receive phishing message; does that mean we shouldn't ensure that customers understand the need to be aware of them and implications of not being vigilant?

@JW - Security would have greatly improved if banks implemented one of these simple options: (a) Push vs Pull, especilly for e-comm (i.e. I insruct my bank to pay a seller, not give someone my FULL card details) - this options still requires some anti-phishing provision; (b) One-time PAN for e-commerce (via bank app) - and remove PAN from my physical card in the process. Just a snippet of what's possible out there, today, in real tangible terms. The same goes for cardless ATMs etc.

Looks like "Customer controls" will polarise opinions! But customer education (or behavioral "nudge") is an absolute necessity for citizens in a digitalised economy. OK - lets make it as simple and inclusive as possible but we're gonna need to change habits. Its a bit like house insurance - if you want to leave your front door secured by a simple latch then that's fine. But please don't complain if your neighbour with the dead-bolt lock and a burglar alarm gets a cheaper insurance deal. Your choice.