BCR Tightens Transfer Process

Banco de Costa Rica really tightens transfer process

Banco de Costa Rica has instituted a complex system of online banking transfers to deter fraud. The system also requires online users to wait at least an hour before making transfers to persons just listed as recipients of funds, and the entire process has to be confirmed by a bank email. Some bank users were surprised Sunday when the system went into effect with hardly any publicity. The bank now has eight pages of instructions on its Web site on how to use the five-step process. The new system seems to require updating the prior list of individual accounts to which users want to provide transfers. Now each potential recipient of funds will have to be registered again in a way that makes multiple use of the bank's system of security cards. Each user has a card that contains columns of numbers that can provide correct two-digit security codes. The new system requires multiple uses of these two-digit codes, and even seeks three sets of security numbers at the same time. Finally after registering a person authorized to receive transfers, the user must await a confirmation email from the bank. Such a confirmation took about five minutes Monday night.

Banco de Costa Rica graphic  New bank security process The confirmation contains yet another code that must be inserted into the system. The bank said that the system will be used for transfers among banks, too. The instructions are duplicated on the English version of the bank's Web site. Banco Nacional customers got a surprise Monday, too, when the state bank seems to have updated its java security system. Some older computer systems were unable to make transfers, but the bank appears to have fixed this problem by nightfall.

SOURCE:  AMCostaRica.com  April 9, 2013

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