25% of online banking customers in the UK share login details

A survey by Thorpe Park conducted for alternative account provider thinkmoney.co.uk reveals that 1 in 4 (24.5%) online banking customers have handed their personal login details over to someone else, while 1 in 5 (19.2%) admitted to giving this information to their partner. Only 1 in 8 (16.2%) revealed to have shared the login information with another family member.

Findings also indicate that online banking login information was not the only type of personal information that customers shared, with 33.2% of current credit card clients admitting to have shared their PIN number with another person, either the spouse (82.5%) or a friend (3.36%).

This happens also with payment services such as PayPal and Amazon OneClick, where 24.4% of consumers allow someone else to use their banking details.

From a geographical point of view, customers in London are most prone to sharing their login details (30.6%), in contrast with those from Northern Ireland, where only 1 in 10 customers shared this type of information.

Practicality seems to be the main motivation. Considering the type of transaction, 50.4% of respondents said they shared banking details so that their spouse could check their balance, 43.6% have asked their partner to transfer funds or make a withdrawal for them and 25.8% asked someone to check a transaction on their behalf. Whereas for sharing PIN numbers, 52.3% did so while asking someone else to transfer or withdraw funds, while 35.6% asked someone to check their balance.