In recent weeks, given the remit of covering business money, I’ve said quite a lot about the state of the economy. I’m going to give it a break this week; either confidence will return or it won’t (and I still believe a lot of the problem has been about either confidence or more likely overconfidence when it comes to, say, valuing a house and the bank valuing its assets on the value of the mortgage) and that’s pretty much that.

What’s more disturbing is the report today that we’re increasingly victims of Internet Fraud. Granted, this week is the week of the Infosec show in London so there will be a lot of people talking up security stories out there but it remains a concern that official figures are underestimating how many people are losing money by so much.

The usual caveats apply and the calls for a Cybercrime unit make a lot of sense. In the meantime this is going to hit customer confidence very hard indeed - it was getting a lot of coverage on the Today programme, for example. Businesses that have downsized to take account of non-face-to-face trading could be in for an unpleasant reality check (elsewhere the BBC has reported - shock horror - that people are increasingly resorting to cash they actually have to fund their purchases).

It’s just what we didn’t need, and makes it a good time for Internet traders to look at and upgrade their security - this afternoon would be a good time.

cash | E-commerce | Finance | fraud | Internet | money