Internet Banking and Corporate Accounts
by Mary Beth Guard, BOL Guru
Guru BIOS
Brought to you by BankersOnline.com
See Also: Bolstering APAC’s Security Posture with Accelerated ZTNA
Question: What are the best practices when offering internet banking to CORPORATE accounts? And further, if individuals on these corporate accounts also hold consumer accounts with us, can we allow them to transfer between the corporation and their personal accounts via internet banking?
Answer: Have a well-written electronic services agreement that sets forth the customer responsibilities for safeguarding access to the Internet account. Consider using a two-tier authentication system. Perhaps, for example, using a user name/password along with a physical access device, such as a smart card or key token, so that not only would someone have to know the user name/password, but they would also have to gain access to the device to be able to log on successfully.
You may wish to put limits on transfers and electronic bill pay to limit possible exposure.
As for allow funds to be transferred between a corporate account and an individual account, that's not a smart practice. In this week's local paper appeared a blurb about a 34 year-old grocery store manager who pleaded builty to defrauding the store by transferring (over the period September 1999 to December 2002) funds from the store's account to his personal account via the Internet.