Banking Changes Over 20 Years

The ways that people access and use their money has changed a lot over the past twenty years. 

Twenty years ago the standard way to do financial transactions involved: going into your local branch during banking hours, waiting in a line, doing your deposits, transfers, bill payments, withdrawing your cash, and leaving to do your other business.  Bills were often paid by mailing a cheque, which usually took a few weeks to come out of your account, and if you ever wanted to pay for something without a cheque you had to go back to your branch again to withdraw cash during banking hours.

Today consumers have a variety of ways to do their financial transactions whenever and wherever they want, faster and more accessible than 20 years ago.  Between debit cards, online banking, mobile banking (using cell phones), e-mailing money, and ATMs.

In addition to the convenience and speed of these electronic services, the decrease in cheque usage has resulted in retailers receiving far fewer NSF cheques which saves stores both time and money.  Instead of waiting for cheques to be deposited, and hopefully not bounced, debit machines allow an instant transfer of cash from the purchaser to the retailer.

Most payroll deposits are now automated, which saves businesses the cost of printing cheques and staff the time needed to deposit them.  

Every auto-deposited government cheque (CPP, OAS, Child Tax Credit...) saves tax dollars by eliminating the cost of printing and mailing them out, plus the government funds are deposited into your account directly on the appropriate day, regardless of the weather or date.  Auto-depositing government cheques also helps fight mail theft and cheque fraud because it helps keep the cheques and personal information out of mailboxes and trash cans.

With these many financial conveniences also comes the need to protect your information. As you use online banking or debit cards make sure that you protect your passwords by doing the following:

• Do not use your children's or your birth date, your address or phone number, or easy to guess numbers like 1111, 1234, or 9999.
• You should change your password on a regular basis.  Most privacy experts recommend changing your passwords at least annually. 
• You should use a mixture of letters and numbers, and symbols like # or % helps make the password even more secure.
•  Do not use the same password or debit PIN (Personal Identification Number) for every account.  If a criminal discovers your one password, you could be giving them access to all of your e-mail accounts and online banking accounts unless you have a different password for each one.
• Do not keep your passwords in your wallet, a paper in your desk or stored on your computer or tablet under a folder named "Passwords."  This may seem obvious and silly, but it happens too often.
• Do not share your password or PIN with anyone.  A common form of electronic financial theft occurs when a family member or friend knows your PIN and then uses it to withdraw cash for themselves.
• Use reliable anti-virus software and keep it updated.  You should also run a thorough virus scan on your computer once a week to look for anything that may steal your information or damage your computer.

All of these precautions can make using debit cards and online banking seem like they may be unsafe.  The reality is that when used properly electronic services are very convenient and secure, and the financial services industry is working to make them even safer.

This past year all debit cards, credit cards, and Point of Sale machines at businesses were converted to Chip Cards.  The chip is a mini computer, which gives the card the ability to store and process data securely. Unlike a magnetic stripe, this processing power makes it extremely difficult to copy and reproduce cards and card information.

Secondly, this processing power is used, together with cryptography (series of mathematical algorithms), to allow the card and terminal to communicate with one another and carry out security checks to ensure the card is valid.

These chips require you to enter a PIN instead of writing a signature.  Throughout the years the PIN has proven to prevent fraud better than the signature, so a PIN has become the new standard on Chip cards.

This new technology makes doing banking easy, fast, and convenient for your personal schedule.  If you ever have questions about your electronic banking services, contact your local financial services provider.  Jerry