Last week we published a report about the privacy risks of Private Banking and Wealth Management websites. The bottom line was that almost two thirds of websites offering online communication through contact forms or email did not care to take even the most basic precautions in order to protect user privacy.

In the light of the recent data thefts affecting mostly European Wealth Managers we find this reckless and negligent. To be fair, there are many cases of banks with role model websites offering all sorts of preacautions and warnings for their users. Yet, it is still deeply unsettling that about 60% of  the analyzed banks across 17 markets have no clue or do not care about privacy. Especially since we are not talking about auto dealerships or mon-and-pap-grocery-stores. We are talking about an industry whose fate rests on a claim of trustworthiness and confidentiality. There is only one thing to do for the affected banks: Realize that you have arrived in the 21st century - a time where online conversations have become as normal as telephone or letter communication and should be protected accordingly.

Tags: banks, data theft, email, https, privacy, private banks, wealth managers, webistes

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Wealth Management Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.