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In an effort to protect customers against fraud like phishing, banks have added extra security features for people who bank online.

Gary Sidaway from ID and authentication firm Tricipher said the extra security precautions could make customers more jittery about banking online. "The banks have to make this channel secure," he said, "but there is crumbling confidence in it."

Andrew Moloney, financial services market director for RSA Security, said banks know that increasing security around online banking could have a negative outcome. "It registers as a concern," he said, "there could be too much security and there's a danger of over-selling a new technology,' he told the BBC.

"This is not just about combating fraud," he added. "It's about customer retention rates, user experience and customer satisfaction."

In 2005 the U.S. Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council created guidelines that made banks do more to protect online accounts.

Phishing statistics show a shift by fraudsters to European banks and to smaller European banks that have less sophisticated online security.

A spokeswoman for the Association for Payment and Clearing Services, which regulates online banking, said its numbers showed that the message concerning safe banking was being heard.

Statistics from October found that online banking fraud for the first six months of 2007 had dropped 67 percent over the previous year. During the same time period the amount of phishing attacks increased 42 percent.

"The reason we are seeing that fall, despite the increase in phishing attacks, is because consumers are becoming more aware of how to protect themselves," said the spokeswoman.