Is 'visible' security needed for consumer applications?

Consumer concerns about about information theft, data breaches and web-based attacks have caused a drop in online commerce activity.

From the article:

"If you look at the regulators like the banking regulators and the credit card associations, they are two years behind the curve," she said. "They finally responded with PCI and FFIEC, and it is definitely improving the security situation, but if they had done this two years ago it would have been in time to prevent this loss."

Litan said that now that there is such a backlash, organizations are going to have to work to regain consumer trust. This means not only installing the right technology to improve security, but also visibly showing consumers what they are doing to secure information.

I think that most online banking decision makers are choosing security measures that are not visible by the consumers. Perhaps they need to rethink that strategy.