Fergie's Tech Blog

Fear Of Identity Theft Discourages Consumers From Banking Online

Deena M. Amato-McCoy writes on Bank Systems & Technology:

For fear of becomming the next victim of identity theft, 150 million U.S. consumers don't bank online, according to experts. But the banking industry could improve profitability by as much as $8.3 billion per year if banks build consumers' confidence in online security, according to the TriCipher Consumer Online Banking Study, conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research (Pleasanton, Calif.) for TriCipher, a Los Gatos, Calif.-based authentication solutions provider.

The study, which was based on online survey responses from 3,349 U.S. adult consumers, reports that 31 million customers would feel safe enough to begin banking online and another 39 million online users would increase their online banking activity if their banks offered free identity protection software. Further, while only 6 percent of survey respondents have been victims of identity theft or fraud, 41 percent -- which translates to more than 88 million U.S. online banking customers -- would change banks or reduce their online service usage if their individual institution was compromised by a data breach, the study says, making identity protection a significant competitive differentiator.

posted by Fergie @ 5/10/2007 12:38:00 PM