Travel planning and your financial security.
Your next adventure awaits! Whether you’re looking to go on your next family beach vacation or you’re planning a solo trip to the big city, getting away from your everyday life can be rejuvenating and exciting.
Before you get too swept up in travel planning, making itineraries, and packing your suitcase, make sure you’re also planning for your financial security! Here are a few financial security tips to help ensure your next trip is carefree and relaxing.
Set up travel alerts
Our Card Defense® app adds an extra level of financial security to your cards by giving you real time control of them from your phone. Once you're enrolled, you can let us know when you're traveling and where you're going so you can avoid declined card transactions while you're there. This app also offers other helpful banking on-the-go features, such as reporting your card lost or stolen, turning your cards off and on if you misplace or find them, and much more.
Be wary of public Wi-Fi
In a study conducted by Forbes, about 20% of responders use public Wi-Fi to make financial transactions. It’s important to stay wary of using public Wi-Fi to access your banking accounts or pay a bill since they don’t encrypt your information in the same way secure networks do. If you have to manage your finances while on vacation and don’t have access to secure Wi-Fi, your best course of action is to simply turn your cell phone’s Wi-Fi off and use your data instead.
Watch out for card skimmers
While travel planning, take note that popular vacation spots can be easy targets for criminals who want to steal your card information. If you have to use an ATM while on vacation, try to use one that’s inside of a building. Criminals have a harder time installing skimmers with cameras watching. If you’re getting gas and need to use your card, check the card slot for any signs of tampering.
You can also use your mobile wallet instead of your physical card for an added layer of financial security! Here are some other ways to stay safe from ATM scams.
Carry some cash as a backup
There are plenty of tools available to help make banking while on vacation seamless and convenient, but it’s also ideal to have some cash with you! While travel planning, make sure to come up with a plan to have multiple forms of payment. In the event that something does happen to any of your cards, you can hold onto whatever amount of cash you’re comfortable carrying in order to cover purchases.
Turn on notifications in our mobile app
Another financial security tip includes making sure that you download our mobile app. Setting up alerts and notifications for your accounts prior to your trip departure can help you stay in the loop about your finances while you’re out of town. You can create alerts for large withdrawals, deposits, and balance updates from any of your accounts.
So, before you pack up your bags and head to the airport, make sure you’re prepared with these financial security tips for banking on-the-go!