Mobile Banking has made life so much easier, right? Everything related to finance is only a click away. What, where, when – all of it is available at your fingertips, courtesy mobile banking. You may be miles away from home or urban civilisation, but you can still access your bank account and other banking facilities without going through the trouble of finding your bank’s branch.
While banking on the go has its benefits, it is also fraught with perils with regards to the safety and security of your transactions and bank accounts. In the era of hacking and identity theft, you need to be extremely careful while using mobile banking, especially in public spaces. Here are a few tips for safe mobile banking usage that you should keep in mind:
- Lock your smart phone: Most smart phones come with a ‘lock screen’ feature wherein you key in a 4-digit pin or a unique lock screen pattern. This safety feature on your smart phone will go a long way in safeguarding your personal, confidential and banking information in case of mobile phone theft. This simple safety tip helps protect important information from falling into wrong hands.
- Install ‘kill switch’ software: You may have heard of mobile tracking software that comes in handy when trying to locate a phone in case it is lost or stolen. However, there are apps that can both track your phone and delete all data in it. They are commonly referred to as kill switch apps that erase your data before it can be misused by miscreants. Also, it is advisable to constantly back up your mobile phone data to avoid loss of any confidential and banking information in case of theft.
- Use mobile antivirus apps: As you may know, there are a range of firewall and antivirus softwares out there to protect your laptop from malwares and viruses. Similarly, in order to safeguard your smart phone from hacking viruses, you can install a mobile antivirus app to strengthen the security of critical data saved on your smart phone.
- Set a strong password: One of the simplest and most effective ways to safeguard your banking information on your phone is to have a unique, complex password to log in to your online banking account and mobile banking apps. If the password is strong, it becomes extremely difficult for thieves and miscreants to hack into your bank account. Also, one should keep changing the password every few months to ensure utmost safety of mobile data.
- Log out from banking apps and sites: Whether it may be on social media sites or mobile banking sites, we have a bad habit of not logging out since we think our information is safe in our mobile phones. But, in the case of mobile theft or hacking, failing to logout is a jackpot for thieves since all your confidential banking data becomes easily accessible. To be better safe than sorry, ensure that you always log out of your mobile banking app and online banking accounts.
- No mobile banking on public WiFi network: Our eyes light up every time we come across an open, public WiFi. There is nothing better than browsing using free WiFi instead of utilising your mobile internet plan. However, stay away from mobile banking while on a public WiFi network since it is not protected from unwanted bugs and hackers. Using a public network to access banking information endangers the safety of your account.
- Don’t save login credentials in the phone browser: When you log in to mobile banking or internet banking sites, you may encounter a pop-up message through which your phone browser asks for your permission to save your login credentials. Saving login credentials on your browser makes it much easier for thieves and hackers to snoop into your account. Thus, it is advisable to refrain from saving the username and password of your mobile banking accounts.
Additional Reading: 4 Ways To Protect Your Debit Card From Cyber Crooks
Now that you are aware of simple techniques for safeguarding mobile banking information, put them to good use and make mobile banking safety your top priority.