How to keep your password and PIN more secure

PIN Security Tips

Your PIN is the equivalent of an electronic signature so it’s important that you protect its confidentiality carefully. We suggest the following tips for choosing and keeping a PIN:

• When selecting a PIN, don’t choose a trivial PIN such as ‘1234’ or your postcode, or similar. These are easy for fraudsters to guess!
• Do not base your PIN on personal information such as your date of birth, address or phone number.
• Memorise your PIN. Do not keep it with your card or passbook.
• Do not disclose your PIN, password or confidential details to any person, including friends or family. 
• Do not keep a record of your PIN, unless it is disguised in a way that is meaningless to another person.
• Consider having a different PIN for each or your cards or passbooks.
• Don’t allow anyone else to see you enter your PIN at ATMs or EFTPOS terminals
• Do not write or record the PIN an any form on your card
• Do not record your PIN on any article you carry with the card, or could lose with the card like a wallet, purse or handbag.

If you believe your PIN with Heritage has been compromised, you can change it online straight away. Please refer to our pin change help guide for the full terms and conditions on selecting and handling your PIN.

Password Security Tips

Your password is the access key to your internet banking, so choose it carefully.

A secure password is one that is difficult to guess, does not contain any identifying information (such as your name or telephone number), and is complex.

 Here’s some ideas to help make your password more secure:

• Make sure your password is more than eight characters and uses a strong mix of characters. Think about using a passphrase, which is a sequence of words or other text that is long, includes symbols and is not necessarily grammatically correct.
• Don’t share your password with others, don’t write it down, and definitely don’t write it on a post-it note attached to your monitor or even stored away. Never share or write down your password.
• Do not use personal information, such as your account number, in your password. Fraudsters can learn this information quite easily.
• Take care to ensure that nobody is watching when you’re entering a password.
• Avoid using the password for your internet banking for anything else. In general, consider using different passwords for each of your online accounts.
• Change your passwords regularly and don’t re-use any recent ones.
• Use a reputable password management tool to securely store your passwords.

At Heritage, we will never ask you for your password under any circumstance. If somebody claiming to be from Heritage asks for your password, do not disclose this information. Do not respond to any email that asks for your personal security details, regardless of how legitimate it may look. Please contact us to report the incident.

If you believe your internet banking password with Heritage has been compromised, you can change it once logged into Heritage Online or call us on 13 14 22.

To learn more about protecting yourself from fraudulent activity, visit our Security and Scam help section or see our latest Heritage security alerts.