Most traditional banks and credit unions make some form of online banking available and consider it an extra added value option for their clients. There are also many newer banks that exist only online and have no ‘brick and mortar’ branch for customers. Regardless of how the service is offered, online banks have had to rise to the challenge of making the service easy to use, yet earning the trust of its customers.
Online banks have many advantages over the traditional banks. With automatic deposit through where you work and the ability to view and manage your accounts online, you may never have to drive to a bank branch again, saving fuel costs and time. Add to that the convenience of ATMs that are now networked together allowing access to your cash from virtually anywhere in the world and online banking becomes even more attractive. And finally, when you include online bill paying to the list of Internet services, saving you the cost of envelopes and postage, and online banking becomes very appealing to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection.
There are many advantages to online banking including the ones mentioned above. There is the convenience of a bank that is open for business twenty-four/seven. Not only that, but you can take care of your banking business from any place in the world with a computer and Internet connection. Transaction speeds are generally at least as fast as those handled at a branch or an ATM. And besides being able to handle all your accounts in one place, there are often other extras included, such as interest rate calculators, stock quotes, and other money management tools.
With a small learning curve, once you become confident in and trust your online bank, you will never want to go back to a traditional brick and mortar bank again.
Online banking has been around for many years, almost as long as the Internet, but there are still many people who have not yet tried it. While banks and credit unions have conducted their business internally for a very long time using computer networks, opening up those networks to the public presented many security issues that had to be overcome. With the growth and maturity of the World Wide Web, along with new applications and procedures, many of these security problems have been resolved, and online banking is becoming more and more popular for a variety of reasons.