Online banking

All highstreet banks offer online banking and some banks are exclusively online with no highstreet branches.

Services

A customer with access to online banking can:

• check their bank balance
• view/print current and previous bank statements
• pay bills online, ie setup direct debits and standing orders
• setup new, separate accounts for specific purposes, eg savings
• transfer money between their accounts and to other people's

Customer benefits

• Convenience - banking when it suits them, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from any computer with an Internet connectionInternet connection: a computer's or another internet-enabled device's connection to the Internet.
• Higher interest rates - savings banks make through reduced staffing, fewer premises and increased automation mean they can offer higher interest rates.
• Increased market awareness - visit all the banks and find out what interest rates they offer online.

Customer concerns

• The closure of small, local branches or reductions in opening hours.
• The security of online banking, specifically hackinghacking: to gain unauthorised access to a computer and credit card fraud.
• Staffing reductions.

As banking becomes increasingly reliant on technology these concerns are set to increase.