Signing e-mails is expressly recommended by the German Federal Office for Information Security. Postbank is starting with its e-mail signature in a pilot test with its large e-mail addresses like This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , for example. In Germany, Postbank is therefore taking on a leading role in broad electronic customer communications.

How can you tell an original from a fake?

Many e-mail programs already offer automatic signature testing. The testing depends upon the respective program. Since not all programs are equipped to handle the testing of e-mail signatures, Postbank is gathering its experiences in a test run. For some producers, the broad implementation of the signature by Postbank is already enough reason to improve their e-mail programs. T-Online programs, for example, are intended to be able to properly recognize Postbank mails starting this summer.

Postbank has compiled a list on the Internet of how the most important programs deal with e-mail signatures (German only): www.postbank.de/email-signatur.

E-mail recipients often see a signature symbol in their e-mail. With a click on this symbol, the customer can check whether the signature is valid and whether the e-mail came from the right sender. If something is not right with the signature, a warning message appears. In such a case, the customer should look more closely and contact Postbank.

With the digital signature, Postbank is adding to its measures against phishing. The mTAN offers another effective method of protection from phishing. The mobile TAN comes to the customer's cell phone via SMS text messaging. In addition to the mTAN, the account number and transfer amount also appear on the cell phone display. The customer can thus immediately see if all of the data is correct. In addition, Postbank already introduced the indexed TAN procedure (iTAN) in August. In this procedure, a specific TAN is requested for each online banking task.

What is phishing exactly?

"Phishing" stands for "password fishing." Scammers attempt to get bank customers to provide their data with the use of fraudulent e-mails. With the e-mails that look like real bank e-mails, the criminals attempt to lead the customers to other websites. On the fraudulent websites they then ask for the secret bank data like the account number, PIN, and TAN.