30 Hoosier Banker December 2014 FEATURE When the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that more than a thousand new top level domains would be unleashed on the Internet, there was little doubt about our response. The American Bankers Association, guided by our banker leadership, did just as it has done since 1875. We led. In 2008, ICANN approved a program to enable the creation of an unlimited number of new generic top-level domains, or gTLDs. The most common of these today are .com, .org, .net, etc. From January to May 2012, ICANN accepted applications for new gTLDs and received nearly 2,000 submissions. So far ICANN has approved more than 100 of those, with many more expected. Among the new domains is “.bank.” And, thanks to a multi-year effort by ABA and other banking organizations, that domain will be operated by the banking industry. Specifically, it will be operated by fTLDRegistry Services, founded in 2012 by ABA, the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) and others for this purpose. ABA decided it was in the best interest of the global banking community for .bank to be owned and managed by the banking industry. Our reasons were twofold. We wanted to protect the interests of the banking industry by ensuring outsiders, whose main interest would have been making a profit, were not at the controls. And we wanted to preserve customers’ trust in banking. We are doing that by making sure proper security controls are in place to protect .bank. Those controls begin with the fact that only verified members of the banking community will be able to register for a .bank site. The new domain also will have enhanced levels of security and adhere to 31 strict standards developed by ABA and FSR. These will help prevent users from being redirected to fake bank websites, will help make it more difficult for criminals to create spoofed e-mails from a .bank domain, will provide a higher level of encryption, and more. We expect the domain to be available in June 2015, at which time fTLD will provide a website to guide banks through the registration process. In the meantime, you’ve got some planning questions to consider with your marketing, IT and legal staffs, as well as your core processor. These questions include whether to move all of your Internet activities to .bank, or keep some activities in the bank’s existing .com or .net site. To learn more about .bank and the process for applying for a domain, including a special process for trademark holders, visit aba.com/ dotbank. ABA’s work to secure the .bank domain is a reflection of our longstanding leadership in payments and cybersecurity. Count on us to continue that leadership role as the field becomes ever more complex and impactful. t ‘.bank,’ ABA and You About the Author Frank Keating was named president and chief executive officer of the American Bankers Association in 2011. His appointment followed seven years of service as president and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers and after serving two terms as governor of Oklahoma. Keating’s 30-year career in law enforcement and public service included stints as an FBI agent, U.S. attorney and state prosecutor, and Oklahoma House and Senate member. Author of three award-winning children’s biographies, he earned an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, a law degree from the University of Oklahoma and is the recipient of five honorary degrees. The author can be reached at: fkeating@aba.com.
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