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laserbeam | 1 month ago

For weak bank logins, my guess is that reimbursing all account takeovers is cheaper than having a complex login process that would scare away non-technical customers. Or, well, I could see myself making that decision if I were more versed in finance than in computer science and I had a reasonable risk assessment in front of me to tell me how many account takeovers happen.

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dlcarrier|1 month ago

Banks aren't even liable for losses from account takeovers, at least if their system is compliant, regardless of whether that makes it secure. Their biggest incentive is customer satisfaction, which fraud does hurt.

It's credit cards that have to reimburse for fraud, but they charge the merchant for it, plus fees, so they have absolutely no incentive to prevent fraud, if not an incentive to outright encourage fraud. That would explain why their implementation of the already compromised EMV was further nerfed by a lack of a PIN in the US.

crote|1 month ago

> Their biggest incentive is customer satisfaction

At a bank? No way. They are some of the most customer-hostile organizations I've interacted with. Dealing with payment accounts is a necessary evil for them, and they are very much aware of the effort required to switch to a different bank, and of the massive regulatory moat preventing consumer-friendly competition from popping up.

A bank doesn't care about screwing over a handful of customers. As long as it's not common enough to draw the attention of the press and/or a regulatory agency, they are not going to spend any money on improving.