Check, check, doublecheck: Is it really the bank calling?

Fraudulent practices such as bank helpdesk fraud, where a criminal pretends to be someone working for the bank, often go unrecognised. A recent survey that Ipsos I&O carried out at ABN AMRO’s request revealed that more than a quarter of people in the Netherlands are not properly aware of what questions banks will never ask their clients.

An extra tool

To help them, ABN AMRO has now introduced the Call Check: a new feature that allows Personal Banking clients to see, if they want, whether an incoming call is actually from an employee of the bank, and not a scammer. The Call Check is an extra security tool, alongside the five existing tools: a daily limit, a debit card limit, push notifications, a payment profile and the Savings Lock.

ABN AMRO has noticed an increasing demand for these types of tools. More than half of its clients (50.6 percent) currently use the app to call ABN AMRO – more than four times as many as three years ago. One in five users have set the ABN AMRO app to send push notifications to quickly inform them about any changes on their current account. In addition, more and more clients now prefer two-step verification to log in to their online banking environment, instead of using the e.dentifier.

Importance of autonomy

The new Call Check feature also accommodates the preference among clients to set up additional security as they see fit. A client who is not sure whether an incoming call is actually from ABN AMRO can ask for a Call Check. The bank’s employee then sends a pop-up message through the app and in Internet Banking to confirm the call. As with the five other tools, autonomy is a very important aspect of the new tool. While ABN AMRO offers the six security tools to help clients, the client decides for themselves whether they use them, and how.

ABN AMRO’s Chief Digital Officer Jorissa Neutelings explains how the Call Check feature works. “If an adviser from ABN AMRO calls a Personal Banking client, they also set up a notification in the client’s Internet Banking or the ABN AMRO app at the same time. The notification then pops up in these two channels to confirm for the client that the caller does in fact work for the bank. This is a wonderful new feature that gives clients an autonomous way to make their banking more secure, and one that fills an important need.”