Abstract
LL.M. (Banking Law)
During the last ten years technology evolved to such an extent that it was inevitable that banks
would have to adapt their traditional understanding and methods of banking. This led to banks
introducing various products and services such as internet banking, mobile banking and emoney.
The advantages of these products are being able to access your bank account on the go, within
minutes, without having to go into the bank and having face-to-face interaction. These products
are automated and computerised. This decreases the bank’s need for human capital and
therefore the banks offer these services at lower charges than normal banking as we are
accustomed to. Prima facie these new products seem like the ultimate banking experience,
being able to effect payment to a creditor outside of banking hours from the comfort of your
home with the push of a button and even at lower rates.
This ease of use without face-to-face interaction, however, inevitably led to fraudsters entering
the arena with easier methods at their disposal to defraud unsuspecting victims through various
trojan horses and man-in-the-mirror techniques which do not require the fraudsters to alter the
victim’s identity document in order to present it to the bank’s teller to withdraw the victim’s
money. These attacks are highly advanced and the victim will normally not even know that an
attack has been launched on his account.
With these new methods of committing fraud, the legislature had to implement certain
standards the banks have to adhere to in order to protect sufficiently the bank’s customer
against these attacks and to avoid the customer suffering losses.