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Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

nytimes.com

161–170 of 274 posts

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#161
post #34
post #4

Does anyone know the cause of the large and long standing difference in banking in US vs Europe? In europe: -for 15 or so years already, web banking has been with 2nd factor authentication (since its inception I assume). In previous decades we would get devices where you need to type numbers from its lcd screen into the webpage login. Today mobile auth apps are taking over. -I have never seen a bank have security que…

(and not called wiring, not sure what in english though) Giro is I think the standard English term for this although it is rarely used because it is a push system while (particularly in North America) banking systems in the Anglophone world typically use cheques which are pull based. Even coming from Canada, I was rather surprised at how ancient the US banking system is. Like it was stuck in the 80s for 2-3 decades.…

Not heard the term Giro in years, not since people stopped using the Post Office for banking services.

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say fraud, do you mean theft or identity fraud? 2FA is extraordinarily relevant when it comes to theft with regard to online banking. The purpose of 2FA is mostly to prevent automated attacks or remote account entry via password resets by email or something similar. I'm not sure if you're aware, but Europe has proper 2FA in the form of a dongle type device, and not this SMS BS many companies in the US use ou…

>2FA is extraordinarily relevant when it comes to theft with regard to online banking If theft through online banking even exists, it's at such a low volume as to be irrelevant. Most online banking interfaces are a read-only view of recent transactions. Some provide the ability to transfer funds between your own linked accounts at the same bank. Fewer still provide bill pay for a specific set of partner institutions,…

Can you clarify what country are you talking about? Because it’s nothing like this where I am and around. On the contrary, banks have been pushing for even more online capabilities for years, so you not only can pay whomever whenever wherever you want, you can open accounts, take loans, buy insurance, see your spendings grouped in categories, etc. etc. The more you can do online yourself, the less staff banks have to pay. Also, there is none of this weird payment card acount/normal account thing. You just have an account and card(s) tied to it. For any purchase I do with my card I get a notification instantly on my phone. As I do for other activity in my account.

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#163
post #43
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing I am surprised no one mentioned yet is mothers who didn't change their last name after marrying.

...or whose mothers never married at all... Or people who don't even have mothers at all. The assumption is also that your mother's maiden name is different from your own name. Which is a very questionable assumption. We certainly show our cultural biases when coming up with these questions.

> Or people who don't even have mothers at all.

That intrigues me. I can imagine not having a living mother, or even a mother who died before/during/after childbirth.

But I can't imagine how it is possible for a child to have no mother at all. Is there a situation that you demonstrate ?

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#164
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wire transfer(IBAN/BIC transfer) is different from an ACH transfer. ACH(EFTS in EU) in the US is generally free, but has a delay for clearing and has some mechanisms for reversal. This is primarily a digital check, and can be initiated by the receiver in that way. A wire transfer is nearly immediate by comparison and offers almost no option for reversal. This option does usually have a fee and is generally reserved…

> ACH(EFTS in EU) ... is primarily a digital check. Well not exactly. I have set up ACH transfer between my dad and my account, but a couple of banks didn't let me. They are like both account holder should be the same. Bank told me that the only option I have is to wire the money. On the other hand, I pay my employees through ACH (ADP take cares of it).

The same name thing is a Bank level restriction, not an ACH network level one.

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t have cashier’s checks or banker’s drafts in Germany?

Germany is a very cash-oriented society. Many independent businesses don't take credit cards and most consumers prefer to pay in cash. Germans are very privacy-conscious, and there's a latent suspicion of debt and intangible money because of Weimar-era hyperinflation. https://www.german-way.com/germanys-cash-culture-geld-stinkt...

Which is slightly odd, considering that in hyperinflation, paper cash was losing value just as fast as intangible money.

However, the privacy aspect makes cash usage understandable. But it is somewhat inconvenient sometimes - for example, you generally have to be prepared to pay taxis by cash, not bank/credit card as in Nordics.

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#167

Until very recently my bank here in Australia was limiting the complexity of passwords. no more than 10 characters, no special characters. utterly ridiculous.

Name and shame em

Used to be called Police and Nurses.

Now its P&NBank.

But they've just relaunched their whole digital banking solutions... its a lot better now.

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a US vs Europe thing. There have been past incidents with Korean websites asking what city you were born in, and since the Seoul area has half the population, that worked for roughly half the users.

True, South Korea is also something special... everyone was required to have internet explorer with activeX for a very long time there to do banking and online shopping

The alternative to that would have been no SSL at all.

The US required that all exported crypto would be limited, so South Korea instead built their own crypto.

And browsers couldn't implement that themselves (also due to export regulations), so South Korea had to implement it as plugin for the then most-used browsers, which was mostly IE.

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#169
post #4

Does anyone know the cause of the large and long standing difference in banking in US vs Europe? In europe: -for 15 or so years already, web banking has been with 2nd factor authentication (since its inception I assume). In previous decades we would get devices where you need to type numbers from its lcd screen into the webpage login. Today mobile auth apps are taking over. -I have never seen a bank have security que…

I'm not going to comment on all the issues you listed, only for the last part.

I think it's a grass-is-greener thing, and you see the bad stuff for one side and the good for the other. There are banks in Europe too, that suck. I had an account in Bank Austria. The username was a number they gave you, and the password had to be exactly 5 numbers. There was a place in the FAQ somewhere that said you can put any password you want, as long as it starts with 5 numbers, and the reason for that is that only these first numbers are taken into account, because of legacy mobile banking (as in, banking from your mobile via sms).

Re: Your Mother’s Maiden Name Is Not a Secret

#170
post #4

Does anyone know the cause of the large and long standing difference in banking in US vs Europe? In europe: -for 15 or so years already, web banking has been with 2nd factor authentication (since its inception I assume). In previous decades we would get devices where you need to type numbers from its lcd screen into the webpage login. Today mobile auth apps are taking over. -I have never seen a bank have security que…

wiring money between european bank accounts is not necessarily free but banks that have fees for wiring within the EU must have the same fees nationally, so as a result many bank prefer to drop the fees altogether
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