Barclays are following the normal pattern of mitigating risk through reduction in transaction limits.  This is inconvenient to customers and drives up costs, by insisting on manual intervention for “above limit” transactions.

And of course, the limit doesn’t solve the fraud .. it just forces the bad guys to be even more creative at being high volume, low cost operators, functioning within the lower limits.

Finextra: Barclays limits online funds transfers to fight phishing fraud

Barclays has lowered its online transfer limit from £2000 to £1000 to protect customers from fraud.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
In order to compete effectively, and be a winner, Banks’ must find methods and processes to properly identify customers electronically to provide effective self service.  Fraud should incent Banks to be low cost operators, not the criminals.