THE HAGUE–Banks in Europe have been racing to acquire the more secure domain “.bank” after more than 4,000 registrations were made in the U.S. for the web address, according to CNBC.
The news network reported that to date more than 500 Europe-based financial institutions have purchased the .bank domain citing “consumer protection,” according to figures provided by domain name seller CentralNic and reported by CNBC.
"The reason for the '.bank' domain name is essentially that the millions of dollars that are lost every year are through Internet fraud," CNBC quoted analyst Ben Crawford as saying. "The '.bank' domain name is only available to banks, so it gives consumers the security of knowing that if they get to a website that ends '.bank', it's not a fake website, it's not a fraud, they can trust it."
The .bank domain names sell for approximately $1,500 each.