Banks Are Switching To 'Dot-Bank' Websites: Here's What That Is Bankrate.com Caret RightMain Menu Mortgage Mortgages Financing a home purchase Refinancing your existing loan Finding the right lender Additional Resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Bank Banking Compare Accounts Use calculators Get advice Bank reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Credit Card Credit cards Compare by category Compare by credit needed Compare by issuer Get advice Looking for the perfect credit card? Narrow your search with CardMatch Caret RightMain Menu Loan Loans Personal Loans Student Loans Auto Loans Loan calculators Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Invest Investing Best of Brokerages and robo-advisors Learn the basics Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Home Equity Home equity Get the best rates Lender reviews Use calculators Knowledge base Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Loan Home Improvement Real estate Selling a home Buying a home Finding the right agent Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Insurance Insurance Car insurance Homeowners insurance Other insurance Company reviews Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Caret RightMain Menu Retirement Retirement Retirement plans & accounts Learn the basics Retirement calculators Additional resources Elevate your Bankrate experience Get insider access to our best financial tools and content Advertiser Disclosure

Advertiser Disclosure

We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence.
Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover.

How We Make Money

The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. SHARE: Maskot/Getty Images August 29, 2018 Mary Wisniewski is a banking editor for Bankrate. She oversees editorial coverage of savings and mobile banking articles as well as personal finance courses. Bankrate logo

The Bankrate promise

At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money. Bankrate logo

The Bankrate promise

Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. We’ve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by and edited by , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Our banking reporters and editors focus on the points consumers care about most — the best banks, latest rates, different types of accounts, money-saving tips and more — so you can feel confident as you’re managing your money. Bankrate logo

Editorial integrity

Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that we’re putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Here is a list of our .

Key Principles

We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information you’re reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers.

Editorial Independence

Bankrate’s editorial team writes on behalf of YOU – the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether you’re reading an article or a review, you can trust that you’re getting credible and dependable information. Bankrate logo

How we make money

You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life’s financial journey. Bankrate follows a strict , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. We’re transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. It’s not the move you’d think about at first, but in recent years, banks have been changing their web whereabouts. Instead of staying at well-known dot-com addresses, a few hundred financial institutions have been relocating to dot-bank top-level domains. What sounds insignificant is meant to show you the bank is really a bank at a time when online scams continue to soar. But there’s a reasonable chance you are about as familiar with a dot-bank as you are Latin. For starters, your bank may not have rolled out the dot-bank extension — yet. The top-level domain became widely available in mid-2015, but plenty of banks have yet to make the switch. Or, perhaps you haven’t noticed the change in the URL because you’re clicking on a bookmarked website that redirects you to the new location. Whatever the case, institutions like Lead Bank, City Bank Texas and have already made the move and more are expected to follow suit. It’s good to get to know what dot-bank is because the extension is more effective at combating online scams when you notice the suffix.

What is dot-bank

The fTLD Registry Services, the coalition operating the dot-bank extension, bills the domain as an “online stamp of trust.” That is because the dot-bank extension is exclusive. Unlike a dot-com, only banks and others like select bank tech vendors can get the extension for their URLs and their emails. Not only is there a vetting process for applicants, but banks with dot-bank extensions must also comply with registry policies on an ongoing basis, like . Drew Schiff, director of engagement services of fTLD Registry Services, describes dot-bank as a “quick visual cue” to trust that the source is a bank. Think of it as akin to a blue badge on Twitter that lets you know the account is verified or like a dot-gov extension that represents a government entity.

The possibilities of dot-bank

The big idea behind dot-bank is to help prevent cybercriminal attacks. One persistent scam involves criminals sending you emails with links that catapult you into a fake bank website that looks a lot like the real one, especially when you’re in a hurry. So, you give criminals your personal bank data without even realizing you’ve been conned. “It’s so lucrative for the bad guys that they are not going to stop,” says Shirley Inscoe, a senior analyst at Aite Group, a research and advisory firm. Dot-bank — which financial institutions also deploy in their companies’ email addresses — is designed to get in front of such attacks; the criminals shouldn’t be operating dot-bank addresses. Of course, you could still fall victim to attacks if you’re not looking for the dot-bank in the address. As Inscoe puts it: “There is nothing 100 percent foolproof.”

Why isn t my bank on a dot-bank

There are many reasons your bank might not yet use dot-bank. What requires just a quick glance from you, requires banks to spend time and money on the switch, including investing in marketing and branding initiatives, and potentially fine-tuning their internal systems. In other cases, some banks might just be waiting for the right moment, like North Shore Bank did. Derek Rowan, IT manager at North Shore Bank, says the bank saw the investment in NorthShore.Bank as a way to layer in additional security measures. So, while the bank had secured the dot-bank for months, the institution waited to roll out the extension until January, when it was launching other online updates. Since then, customer reactions have been positive to the changes, but he says it’s hard to know if that’s specific to dot-bank, or an overhauled website. “We were doing a lot of things at the same time,” Rowan says.

Nothing prevents everything

Until dot-bank becomes more commonplace, some observers worry whether dot-bank will do the opposite of its intention. “There’s a concern that consumers will think it’s a hoax,” said Jim Trautwein, senior director at Cornerstone Advisors, a banking consultancy firm. The rebranding could also perplex customers who, say, have accounts with five different banks — only two of which use dot-bank extensions. Another consideration is whether the bank’s core technology vendor is using the extension. If not, the customer could see a dot-bank before he logs in to his account and a dot-com address after he logs in. For all of these reasons, Trautwein thinks it will take time to realize the benefits. “It has a lot of potential to ease consumers’ minds,” Trautwein says, “but only once it’s a standard — and it will take years to become a standard.” SHARE: Mary Wisniewski is a banking editor for Bankrate. She oversees editorial coverage of savings and mobile banking articles as well as personal finance courses.

Related Articles