Internet not made for banking

Long-time critic of internet banking Bill Caelli said yesterday that the channel is now so integral to the economy, business and commerce that governments must step in to heavily regulate and secure it or banks must get off the net.

According to East & Partners, ninety per cent of business banking customers go online to interact with their primary business bank, 62 per cent use a relationship manager, 59 per cent have a product specialist, 19.5 per cent use ATMs, 9.7 per cent use the branches and 4.8 per cent use a call centre.

Speaking from a conference in Paris where the issue of securing the net is high on the agenda, Adjunct Professor Caelli from QUT called for co-ordinated global action to provide secure web services.

"There is a big discussion happening globally about web services such as internet banking.

"The question is, can you create large-scale secure transaction systems on the web - and the answer is coming back as no."

"I mean, yes, they are easy and simple to create, but the world-wide web was not designed for this purpose.

"The web services systems don't have resilience - that is the ability to cope when problems arise - and security.

"So here we are in a totally unregulated, unsecure environment operating these increasingly critical services.

"Now, internationally, the question is being asked, why is there no government involvement in this area? Other critical areas such as air transport and pharmaceuticals are highly regulated but web services are almost totally unregulated."