Our tips for safe banking
1. Keep calm and read your messages carefully
Our busy schedules can sometimes prevent us from detecting a scam before it’s too late. When in a hurry, you might accidentally click a link informing you about a package delivery, late invoice or blocked payment card.
Scammers often try to create a sense of urgency and a pressure to act using phrases like “if you don’t act now, your account will be blocked”.
As with many other things, take a moment to stop and think before doing anything online. If there’s any reason for suspicion, think whether the link is genuine or whether something looks too good to be true.
2. Never reveal your online banking credentials to anybody
A scammer can pretend to be a soldier in a crisis zone in what is called a love scam, or they can say they’re a representative of an investment firm when trying to pull off an investment scam. In recent years, there has been an increasing number of scams where the scammer pretends to be an acquaintance of the victim. In such cases, the scammers use various instant messaging apps to get in touch with the victim, claiming to be their relative, family member or friend and saying they are participating in a competition or lottery or asking for help with paying bills.
Remember that you should never give your online banking codes or payment card details to anyone else, not even your friends or relatives. If a family member sends you a message from a new phone number asking you to pay a bill, check that it’s really them by calling their old number.
3. Check links before you click them
Search engines are a great tool for surfing the web, which is why they’re also used by scammers. When accessing any services that require you to log in using your online banking codes, type the entire website address in your browser’s address field or add it to your favourites or bookmarks. Always search for service providers’ contact information on their own websites.
Avoid browsing through a search engine to access websites where you are asked to log in with your online banking codes. Search results may sometimes include phishing websites that could steal your login data.
4. Be alert when confirming payments in your Nordea ID app
If you are confirming a transaction with the Nordea ID app, check that the details shown in the app match the transaction. Check that the amount, recipient and date of the transaction are correct. Encourage your family and friends to always check the transaction details in the Nordea ID app before confirming payments.
If you get a confirmation request in the app that you don’t recognise, please contact us immediately.
5. Be critical about offers
Scammers often make their victims offers that sound almost too good to be true. It could be a wonderful investment opportunity, a cheap loan or tickets to a sold-out event. The purpose of such offers is to trick the victim into investing into a fake scheme or buying products that they never receive.
If you come across an offer online that seems too good to be true, stop to think. If necessary, ask a friend or family member for their opinion. If something looks too good to be true, it usually isn’t true.
6. Discuss online security with your family and friends
It’s important to be aware of various scams to be able to prevent them. The more familiar you are with scammers’ methods, the better you can protect yourself.
Talk with your family and friends about staying safe online. If they tell you they’ve been contacted by someone they don’t know asking them for money or they received unbelievable offers on the internet, ask them to tell you more. Make sure that they know what to do if they fall victim to fraud.
7. Don’t struggle with online security alone
You can get help with safely navigating online services, including banking. You can also find support for staying safe online on our website.
Read how you can do your daily banking in an easy and secure way.
Nobody chooses to get scammed. If you have fallen victim to fraud, you don’t have to deal with it alone. Talk to your family and friends about what happened. You can also get help from Victim Support Finland (RIKU), for example.
Situations in which Nordea may contact you
For security reasons, we don’t usually email or call you.
We may send you some marketing emails if you have given your consent to receive them. You can change your settings any time in Nordea Mobile or Netbank under “Consents”.
Requirement to encrypt email messages
In order to be able to receive email messages from us, you must give your consent and make sure your email fulfils our technical encryption requirements. Nordea’s minimum encryption requirement for emails is TLS 1.2 (Transport Layer Security). This encryption mechanism protects the information contained in an email from falling in the hands of outsiders on the open internet.
To make the encryption work, the systems of both the sender and the recipient must support the same encryption mechanism. If your email system doesn’t fulfil the minimum requirement, you can ask for support from your operator, for example.
Check that the messages you receive are genuine
If you receive a message from us, you should keep in mind that:
• we will never ask you for confidential information, such as credit card details, account numbers, online banking credentials or passwords, and you should never give this information to us.
• we will never send links to software or apps that you should install on your computer or mobile device.
If someone asks you for this information in a survey, the sender is not Nordea or one of our trusted partners.
Did you get an invitation to participate in our customer survey? Read more about our customer surveys.