Dishonesty, neutralisation and nudging

Abstract

E-banking offers clients unparalleled convenience but also exposes them to potential fraud from cyber criminals. Traditionally, banks use technical security measures to ameliorate these kinds of threats. These measures, while essential, are not universally efficacious in preventing fraud. It would be wise to augment technical measures with softer measures such as behavioural interventions (i.e., nudges). In this paper, we report on the effectiveness of behavioural nudges designed to dissuade opportunistic “others” from committing e-banking fraud. Here, we report on an investigation into the impact of the deployment of a number of behavioural nudges in an e-banking customer interface. We evaluated their impact through semi-structured interviews with e-banking customers in the United States of America. We found that nudges which emphasise empathy and heightened awareness of traditional security measures were remarkably effective in dissuading dishonesty. Notably, deployment immediately after login yielded optimal results. Our findings highlight the potential of behavioural nudges to reduce e-banking fraud, thereby augmenting traditional technical countermeasures. We conclude with recommendations for future research.