European banks have rushed to acquire the more secure domain name ".bank", after more than 4,000 registrations were made in the U.S. for the web address.



So far, over 500 European financial institutions have signed up to have this special domain, and the reason is "consumer protection," according to the chief executive of domain name seller, CentralNic.

"The reason for the '.bank' domain name is essentially that the millions of dollars that are lost every year, are through internet fraud," Ben Crawford told CNBC.

In recent years, several banks and popular organizations have seen breaches in their networks, including JPMorgan in 2014, when the bank revealed that some 76 million households and seven million small businesses had their data compromised by a cyber-attack.

On top of that a 2014 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that cybercrime costs the global economy over $400 billion every year.

"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."

