card reader v sms

spicer2

I have been a Nationwide building society member most of my adult life, but living abroad I have found using online banking with browser much easier using their card reader. I did use sms for a while but it has failed due to outages due to phone services providers and sometimes I just did not get the sms.

my opinion is card reader are  more reasonably safe, and I feel confident in using it. Other opinions may vary.

spicer2

DoboChopSueyBar

Do you use a smartphone? If so, you can send a login authentication request to the Nationwide app when trying to login via a web browser. I find this far more convenient than card reader or SMS authentication on the rare occasions I have to use Nationwide's desktop banking. But i believe you still need to use the card reader for certain requests/transactions even after you've logged into the deskop banking - irrespective of whichever method you used for login authentication.

Eyeful

Security experts agree on one thing
"Of the different 2FA methods there are, the SMS method is the least  secure but is better than using only just a password.