Singaporeans are still leery of doing financial transactions on the Internet, according to a recent survey by Paypal.
The research study, which was commissioned by PayPal and executed by Nielsen, collected over one thousand responses from Sinagporeans in a two-week survey period from end July to early August 2011.
The key criteria to be included in the study was having transacted online or through a mobile device in the past three months.
Key findings include:
— 33 percent of respondents had experienced fraud, phishing or had their personal information stolen online or from their computer.
— 91 percent of respondents were concerned about the amount of personal and financial information shared online. 50 percent did not know how many websites hold their personal details.
— 50 percent of respondents re-use the same passwords across multiple accounts. This could be solved using password management tools.
— 55 percent of respondents were not comfortable sharing their credit card, debit card or bank account online. With all Singaporean banks having some form of two-factor authentication, this is surprising to me.
The study was endorsed by the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), which suggested some of the issues for PayPal to look at.
NCPC has also spearheaded interesting programs like Cyberonia, a virtual online game to teach local primary school kids about internet safety and security.
NCPC is part of the Cyber Security Awareness Alliance, a collaborative body driven by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) , which is dedicated to raising awareness in cyber security issues in Singapore.
