ING Bank survey: One out of two Romanians intends to buy more online for holidays

One out of two Romanians plan to spend more money for online purchases for holidays compared to last year, while 80% of them consider the number of online fraud attempts had grown significantly, according to a study made by Ipsos for ING Bank.   It is not by chance that the most wanted gifts coincide with the most vulnerable categories of products according to the number of frauds on marketplace type sites. In the top of gifts Romanians intend to offer there are clothes,cosmetic products and toys. Prefernces also include household items, gadgets, sports items.   In the campaign against cyber fraud attempts in August, ING Bank released the latest data collected by its partner OLX,according to which most fraud attempts have in view the following categories of products: fashion (33%), electronics (30%), house and garden (14%), mother and child (10%) and sports (7%).   “Winter holidays represent an occasion of joy for everybody, and also a period of time favorable to cyber attackers who take advantage of the potential victims' enthusiasm and lack of attention. Study results reconfirm the neccesity for the bank sector to continue actions of information and education of all card users for the prevention of cyber frauds,”said Alin Becheanu, head of fraud montioring and prevention ING.   The ISPOS study made in Novemver shows that altough 8 out of 10 Romanians consider that cyber attacks are growing in this period, 40% of them usually feel safer online, while 28% always do it.   The same study confirms that although Romanians feel safer when they pay cash, modern payment methods are winning more ground. Thus, the top is completed by bank application and card payments. On the other hand, the increase of online purchases – a tendency which grew during the pandemic – represented an opportunity for cyber attackers to intensify their activity and diversify their methods. According to IPSOS study, the most common types of fraud experimented by Romanians online are phishing and smishing, malware and vishing. According to the study, only 16% of Romanians declare they have been vistims of frauds or know someone who was in that situation, while 19% day they succeeded to get away without losing any money. At present, 4 out of 10 Romanians say they do not know want to do in case they become victims of such fraud.   ING Bank Romania is part of IMG Group, an international financial institution offering bank servies to over 38.4 million individual customers, companies or institutions of 40 countries.   Set up in 1994, ING Bank Romania is the foruth ranking bank in top 10 local banks and the only bank with organic growth, without pucrchases of customer or bank portfolios. ING Bank Romania is a universal bank with over 1.6 million sutomers in three business segments: retail, small and mid corporate companies and wholesale banking.