You'd think for all the fees banks charge us they'd at least do the job we want them to do. But as it turns out, we have to help them with security as well now.

USA Today says that about 80 percent of U.S. households have come to do their banking over the Internet, but that "cyberattacks against individual online accounts have become so sophisticated and pervasive that the American Bankers Association is now asking consumers to 'partner' with banks to keep cyberrobbers in check."

The banking industry now wants consumers to monitor their online accounts for unauthorized transactions on a "continuous, almost daily, basis," says Doug Johnson (News - Alert), the ABA's vice president of risk-management policy. No, don't be silly, you don't get any reduction in fees for doing the banks' job for them. They'll probably find ways to add new ones.

This shifting burden has come about because the banking industry decided, about ten years ago, to promote personal computers as convenient venues for consumer banking, USA Today says. Those of us old hands in CRM know that that was all about reducing the face-to-face personal customer contact, "keeping the ugly suckers off our carpet" in the branch offices, as one rather candid banking official told us.

That way they could close more branches, reduce hours and save more on overhead

And as night follows day, online attacks soon followed.  A 2009 ABA survey of 170 U.S. banks revealed, USA Today reported, that "85 percent of big banks are incurring losses stemming from cyberattacks on consumer online accounts. Banks responding to the survey rated the 'threat level' of online attacks at 2.58 on a scale of zero to five; that's up from a 1.84 rating in 2007."

The banks should probably honor the old idiom of good customer service and do their best to ensure customer safety online. Part of that process may be implementing better address verification software – the computer should verify whose transferring that money… before it happens.