Bank of Utica - Central New York - Mohawk Valley - Member FDIC

How We Protect You

Bank of Utica has a long history of safeguarding customer information.  We use many methods to protect you, from state-of-the-art technology to good old fashioned common sense.  We keep up on the latest software, firewalls, and security systems while at the same time relying on the knowledge and expertise of our staff who are familiar with many types of fraud and can spot unusual account activity.  Many of our security measures are explained here, however, we utilize even more which we believe best be kept secret.

Technology
You can be assured that any transaction you conduct from our website – whether inquiries, transfers, or bill payments – will be protected and secure.  We are constantly upgrading our security systems to guard against newly emerging hackers, viruses, and spam.  

• We use software that monitors for fraudulent checks against our customers' accounts.
• Another type of software can detect unusual patterns of debit card purchases being made.  
• We use encryption, passwords, and the latest – multi-factor authentication – which requires a user to verify an image or picture before they can access their account.  
• We use sophisticated firewalls and anti-virus software that can detect possible intrusions 24 hours a day and immediately shut down our website if necessary.
• We monitor large software companies such as Microsoft or Adobe for patches to their systems designed to strengthen any weaknesses which may attract viruses or hackers.  
• We hire experts on an ongoing basis to try to hack into and find weaknesses in our systems.

Our Employees
We often feel that our employees may be just as effective when it comes to protecting our customers.  We boast about having long-term employees, as half have been with us over twenty years, 75% over ten years.  This experience means they understand banking and personally know many of our customers and their banking patterns.  If they see something that looks unusual, they are trained to look further to see if there really is a problem. 
Training is a key element.  To name just a few areas – employees are trained on how to identify customers when they call the bank for information, how to spot possible cases of identity theft, and how to deal with fraud. 
Some of the procedures our employees use are:

• We still physically look at large checks everyday to be sure that the signatures are authorized, that they are properly signed and endorsed and have not been altered.
• We even call customers on many large checks to be sure the customer actually issued the check.
• We carefully monitor address changes and never send personal information in an email.
• We use a variety of exception reports that show us any unusual activity on an account.
• We make sure that any company we do business with or that we may have to share customer information with in order to process transactions has procedures in place to protect the data we give them.

For more information, you can view or print our Protecting You From Fraud brochure or call our Personal Banking Department at (315) 797-2700 ext. 264 to discuss your concerns.

Privacy
In the normal course of business, we are collecting what is known as "nonpublic information" that you give to us such as your social security number, account numbers, income, and debts.  Ways we use this information may be to process transactions for you or to approve a loan for you. 

We do not give your personal information to any other company except for the reasons stated such as processing transactions for you.  We do not have any affiliates that we share information with and we never sell customer lists to any marketing company. 

We consider all customer information private and privileged.  We have strict internal policies against unauthorized use of disclosure of customer information.  Customer information is accessible only to employees who need to use it.  We regularly stress the importance of confidentiality to our employees.  We also take customer inquiries regarding privacy very seriously.  If you ever have a concern, you can write us at Bank of Utica, Consumer Complaints, 222 Genesee St., Utica, NY  13502.  Our policy is to investigate and correct inaccuracies in a timely manner.  For more information, you can print our Safeguarding Your Privacy brochure or call our Personal Banking Department at (315) 797-2700 ext. 264 to discuss your concerns.