Online Bank Fraud Concern Belgians
Ebru NewsA(P) A Belgian Federal Prosecutor was expected to open an investigation into 15 cases of online bank fraud this week, as internet banking has become increasingly popular amongst Belgians.
Around 4 million people use online banking, with some banks carrying out up to 500-thousand internet banking transactions every day.
But as the Belgian Federal Prosecutor was expected to open an investigation into the hacking of up to 15 people's personal Internet banking systems, the security of online banking in Belgium has been questioned.
Since the beginning of 2007, 15 customers at two major Belgian banks - Dexia and KBC - have become victims of online fraud.
That brought up to 50 the total number of Belgian online bankers in the past three years who have lost money due to fraudulent hacking of their personal computers.
According to some sources, up to $1.2 million dollars have been lost to online fraud.
Some customers are now beginning to fear that the online banking system is no longer safe.
Renate Volpel was a victim of online banking fraud whilst she was living in Germany.
She said that she could not prove to her bank that someone had stolen money from her account, and said she had to pay the entire sum back.
"I decided I will never do it (bank online) again because I thought that the security system established by the bank was not sufficient for my private account," Volpel said.
The KBC Bank reported that seven of its customers had been the victims of online fraud since the beginning of 2007.
They added that its banking system was intact, and that hackers had instead accessed their customers' private computers.
The Head of Communications at the KBC Group, said that both the bank and the customer hold equal responsibility to make sure the process of online banking is as secure as possible.
"(Security) is the responsibility of the customer and a customer should also take into account a number of rules. The last few years we have always been giving on our website hints to customers on how they can make sure that their PC is secure and that they do their part of the security job," Viviane Huybrecht said.
The Belgian Financial Federation said that security breaches are inevitable online.
"We want to obtain the 100 percent (security) but we know from a theoretical point of view, this is very hard to obtain," Marina De Moerlooze said.
"Everybody has to take responsibility so it's not up to us to say who is responsible in these events we have had in Belgium," she added.
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