The business of banking is synonymous with trust. Bank customers measure this trust through the questions: is my wealth secure, is my privacy protected? With the advent of Internet banking and an increase in global terrorism, banks face complex security challenges.Security in a traditional bank concerned physical access to branches, safe deposit vaults, and guarding the movement of cash and sensitive documents. The use of IT till the 1960s was minimal. But with the development of new networking paradigms that culminated into the World Wide Web, branches were networked; and, at the turn of the millennium, we witnessed the launch of Internet banking. Banking transactions became cross-border and truly global for the first time. Today, both physical security and information security are vital for the banking industry.

Physical access to branches and vaults is still monitored by specialised security agencies, while ATMs, which are largely unmanned, are secured through smart cards or magnetic strip cards that can double up as your ATM/debit card. Cash-carrying vans are now wired with a variety of sensors that employ biometric techniques for identification through fingerprint, whole palm or retina scans. The movement of these vans can be tracked through satellites.

The area of information security is far more challenging. The physical ledger has now been replaced by a relational database management system. Your bank balance is merely an entry in a database. In addition, old standalone MIS/EDP software applications are giving way to core-banking applications. The product specialist is no longer an end-user of the IT systems of a bank; the customer now accesses banking systems through a variety of electronic channels, including the Web and the mobile phone.

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