The Legitimacy of Online Banking Transactions as a Value-Added Tool in Rwanda’s Banking System

This paper sought to study online banking services’ security constraints and transaction legitimacy checks using “two factors authentication or multi factor authentication”. The Government of Rwanda introduced a cashless program that had a target of promoting electronic payment and the program was more enforced during COVID-19 insurgency when the general public was strictly encouraged to use electronic payment systems to curb the badly disseminating disease and enforce other existing benefits of online payment schemes. When comes to the issue of security though, for the last five years, the Rwanda Investigation Bureau statistics demonstrated a hiking number of financial crimes varied from 4276 cases (2019) to 11,117 (2023), which involved cyber fraud cases that mainly dominated with two crimes of “unauthorized access to computer or computer system data”, and “access to computer or computer systems data with intent to commit a crime varied from 302 to 445cases (fiscal year 2021/2022-2023/2024) and 84 to 200 cases respectively. In this research, security concept on e-banking services were examined using both quantitative as well as qualitative approaches in collecting data and analysis using SPSS. Findings show that the Information Technology knowledgeless on the public is key cause of the increased cyber frauds against online banking. The combination of that low level of knowledge in technology and weak security setups in e-banking systems were the main cause of money defrauding which attracted a recommendation of reminding service providers to periodically remind their customers to deploy a “Two-Factor Verification” scheme into every single online transaction, and regularly train them on any new emerged technologies. This study concludes by suggesting a security model that can be followed by beneficiaries of the integrated banking systems to fight against cyber frauds and timely report them to the respective law enforcement agencies.