Customers Perception of Security Indicators in Online Banking Sites in Nigeria

Internet banking provides alternatives for faster delivery of banking services to a wider range of customers. The increasing popularity of Internet banking, have attracted the attention of both legitimate and illegitimate online banking practices. Customers are liable to criminal activities, fraud, thefts and various other threats of similar nature. Criminals focus on stealing user's online banking credentials because the username and password combination is relatively easy to acquire and then relatively easy to use to fraudulently access an Internet banking account and commit financial fraud. To alert users, many banking sites are now including Security Indicators (SI) to their sites. This paper describes a user study performed to investigate user’s perception of factors influencing the effective implementation of existing SI objectives and to evaluate the effectiveness of SI in banking web browsers using the Communication-Human Information Processing Model (C-HIP) model, a model proposed by Wogalter in 2006 in the field of warning sciences. Findings revealed that SI are not very effective at alerting and shielding users from revealing sensitive information to spoofed sites. These outcomes may help the management of banks develop effective security strategies for the future of electronic banking in Nigeria.