As the economy continues to be unstable, Managing Director for FBNBank, Victor Yaw Asante, has called on banks to beef up security, and improve on vigilance on their Internet services to avoid fraudsters from hacking into their systems.
According to Mr. Asante, tough economic times leave room for individuals to take advantage of the cyber space to break into the systems of banks and defraud them, hence, the need for banks to spend more to ensure their systems are under top level protection.
“These are fairly stretching times for financial institutions, and our vigilance has gone up. When the economy is tough, people do all manner of things; people try to do things on the cyber side by trying to break into your systems. So it means you must spend a lot of money to make sure all your systems are at the top level,” he said this during a walk organised by the bank.
Mr. Asante mentioned that the economic situation is very challenging, leaving banks in a worried state; but he warns that passing Interest costs to clients, banks might end up losing customers. On his side, he said there is a bit of structuring to ensure the bank navigates through the current situation with its customers.
The Walk
FBNBank’s objective for organising the walk was to create awareness and announce itself to the people within the suburb of East Legon of their new branch, which will be inaugurated in a few weeks. It was also an opportunity to communicate the benefits of a healthy, active lifestyle to participants of the walk.
The expansion of the bank’s branch to East Legon is to create convenience to both existing customers and prospective ones who will have to drive through the traffic to transact business with them in the main cities.
Mr. Asante indicated the bank’s plan to spread across the other regions as they aim to be a national bank, and not just limited to a specific geographic location. He added that the bank’s digital platforms have been revamped to provide convenient banking to its customers.
“We intend to be a national bank and not just a geographical bank. But to do this, you have to make sure that you cover key markets, then you roll out. We will continue to work on that to have, at least, a physical representation of the regions, whether it is a full branch or an agent. But we are covered nationally by our digital platforms which is where most of the banking is ongoing. We have spent quite a bit of money ensuring the safety and robustness of these platforms,” he said.
Mr. Asante took the opportunity to call on all individuals to take up the challenge of walking as a habit to live a healthy life.
