Standard Bank of South Africa claims to have detected and eliminated over 85,000 viruses on the personal computers of customers since it began issuing free McAfee anti-virus and firewall software.
The bank says that more than 3000 Internet banking customers a day are downloading the free bug-detection kit.
Standard Bank began distributing the security software following the alleged use of Trojan Horse viruses in an Internet bank fraud perpetrated against neighbouring Absa Bank. The bank has also introduced a calculator-type PIN pad on its Internet banking site to counteract the use of keypad-logging software.
Says Herman Singh, director: direct channels at Standard Bank: "The fact that customers are taking Internet banking security so seriously reinforces our message that Internet security has to be a partnership between the bank and its customers."
He says there has been a surge of new customers signing up for Standard Bank's Internet banking service.
"Interestingly, we have discovered that our customers had over 85,000 viruses on their personal computers: this equates to about 20 viruses a customer," says Singh.