Our Internet banking security standards

Just how secure is it?
How is security achieved?
What is Biometric Authentication?
What are my responsibilities?
Select a browser that provides the most protection
How have we met our responsibilities?

Just how secure is it?

Our Internet banking service offers you the best security currently available in a commercial environment. This means your privacy and confidentiality are assured. Any personal or transactional information transmitted between you and Envision is secure and cannot be read by anyone else. With our Internet banking service the integrity of the information you send is guaranteed. Transactions and communications from members are received without alteration.

How is security achieved?

Access to our member services and financial systems and databases is strictly managed. Technological and procedural systems are in place to ensure security is not breached. This includes physically securing all of our computer hardware and telecommunications systems. And just as you play a vital role in ensuring the security of your home and your possessions, you too share in the responsibility for the security of our Internet banking service.

What is Biometric Authentication?

Due to the sensitive nature of managing users for our Business members, biometric fingerprint devices are used to authenticate the identity of these users. Users of our Internet banking service must have a Windows or Internet Explorer platform in order to use our biometrics login system. The biometric fingerprint authentication system provides positive user authentication equal to a 60-character password. The authentication process is as follows:

Users who are not authenticated, that is, their fingerprint and user ID do not match the one stored on the system, are considered invalid. If the user attempts to access the system three times, the user ID will be locked out and only an Envision representative will be able to unlock the user's ID.

What are my responsibilities?

It is very important that you protect your Personal Access Code (PAC). The confidentiality of your PAC ensures that you alone are allowed access to your accounts. Here are some tips for protecting your PAC:

It is also very important to protect the information on your personal computer. We have provided a secure method for our members to communicate with us. Once the information has reached your PC, it's up to you to protect it.

You should:

Select a browser that provides the most protection

To access our Internet banking service you will need an Internet browser that supports 128-bit encryption. We have chosen 128-bit encryption as our standard as it is the strongest publicly available encryption protection today.

Our Internet banking service can be accessed by:

For Mac users, minimum browser requirements are as follows: In order to upgrade your browser to 128-bit encryption, we have provided you with links to the Netscape and Microsoft web sites. If you have a current version of either Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator, the files required to upgrade the encryption to 128 bit are relatively small, quick to download and install. You will need to know the browser you are using and the version number before attempting to update your system. Look under the Help menu item on your browser menu bar and then choose the menu item "About...". This brings up a screen that shows the version of the browser you are presently using.

Be aware that if you choose to download the full version of either Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator, these are quite large files and depending on the speed of your connection to the Internet, may take considerable time to download. You may wish to consider ordering a CD from either Netscape or Microsoft as they both make their browsers available on CD at a nominal cost.

How have we met our responsibilities?

We ensure your personal and financial information is protected within our in-house member service and financial systems and databases.

We ensure your personal and financial information is protected while in transit between your PC and our home banking server through the use of industry standard security techniques, which include Secure Socket Layers (SSL) and encryption.

Encryption ensures that information in transit between your PC and our home banking server cannot be read (private and confidential) or changed (integrity). We ensure that only individuals who provide the correct Personal Access Code (PAC) can access your account information.

For your protection, our Internet banking service has been designed to lock your session automatically if there has been no activity for 2 minutes. Therefore if our system detects that you haven't provided any instructions or used the browser buttons to navigate within our Internet banking system for 2 minutes, the session will automatically be locked and you will need to provide your account number and Personal Access Code again to conduct further transactions. After 4 minutes of no activity, the connection will end and you will need to Login again.

Our Internet banking system uses a technique called a "cookie" to maintain a connection with you. A cookie is a small amount of information, stored on your PC in an encrypted form that is intermittently sent to and from our Internet banking server.

The cookie provides us with information that enables us to ensure that each request for information really came from you and that we deliver the information only to you. The cookie also lets us know when to time-out your connection as explained above.