It's another new week and work has already started but have you ever thought about your bank account security? Have you ever followed some measures to secure your ATM cards and bank details from men of the underworld?
Recently GTBank introduced what seemed to be a very easy banking method for her customers where someone is able to recharge his phone, pay bills, transfer funds from one account to the other and lots more right from their mobile phones without having to connect to the Internet.
I believe GTBank did that to make banking easier to her customers but they left or may i say forgot the big security hole this method might cause. I was just thinking about it few hours ago and i decided to share it here with you so that you secure your banking details for the benefits of you and the bank in particular.
DISCLAIMER
This post is not sponsored by anyone and it is not to stop you from patronizing this particular GTBank service. As a matter of fact, GTBank is one of the top banks for secured online banking as they have support for virtually everything you can do online. You can as well receive US dollars payment straight into your GTBank savings account without opening a Domiciary account for that purpose. You can check my previous articles on GTBank on how to generate bank token via GTBank and how to get 1Gb data from GTBank . Having said that, we are here to give you the top measures you can apply while banking not only with this bank but other banks .
HOW GTBANK 737 CODE WORKS
Assuming you want to transfer money from one bank account to the other without Internet or going to the bank hall, all you need to do is to dial *737# from the number you used while creating GTBank account. When this code is dialed, options will come up for you to choose transaction method and the only security method provided by GTBank is to enter the last 4 digits numbers on your ATM card as PIN/password as seen in the screenshot below.
UNFORTUNATE SITUATION
Assuming you got robbed by robbers and your phone or wallet (ATM card inside) were also taking from you, do you know that this robbers can empty all the money in your bank account by just dialing the *737# and using the last 4 digits on your ATM card as PIN. Apart from robbers, even your close friends or roommate in school with bad intention could steal your ATM information and harm you with it. This can happen to any of your bank accounts, not just GTBank . Imagine the big hole!
HOW DO I PROTECT MYSELF?
Assuming you have been using this or someone close to you using it, the best measures you should take to protect your phone is by using an app lock to lock your SMS and some sensitive applications on your phone. See how to use CM security app to lock your apps. You should also provide a lock for your SIM card so that even if someone take it away from your device and insert it in another phone, it will require password to lock.
I prefer you use strong password to lock your device instead of pattern lock as pattern is easily coded.
WHAT GTBANK MUST DO NOW
No one is above mistakes and this is not just directed to GTBank but every other bank that have similar method for authentication. I suggest they should abort the use of last 4 digits on ATM cards and implement the use of personal password as authentication method before each transaction can go through. At least it would be too hard for anyone to manipulate or guess your personal password.
FINAL VERDICT
Whether you are banking with First Bank, UBA, Diamond bank, GTBank, Union Bank, Eco Bank, Sky bank etc, you should be at alert and secure your banking tools because anything that have advantage also have its disadvantages. Cashless policy and online banking is cool but without good security measures, it can be disastrous.
GTBank is among my top 3 best banks so far and i believe they have taken note 📝 of this. Continue the good work.
