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No matter where online banking comes from or where it is today, it is most certainly here to stay. As a tool of modern living and as a lifestyle aid, it is absolutely indispensable. The fact is that many services that are now being offered with online banking are almost impossible to avail of in regular banking. This holds even truer for developments that the future of online banking will bring.

Judging by its current popularity and rate of implementation, online banking will increase in scope and user base in the future. Individuals and businesses that have refused to adopt it as a commercial tool before now will not really be left with much choice. As things stand now, using conventional methods of business inquiry, confirmation, order-placement and bill payment is retrograde at best. The speed (and reduced manpower) with which the same activities can be done online leaves the traditional methods completely in the shade. The same holds true for normal vs. online business-related banking.

In a domestic setting, too, shopping has been and will continue to be revolutionized by the Internet option. Payments for goods bought online will almost always be done via a bank-related credit card or direct deduction from a bank account.

However, traditional biases against online banking are not going to be overcome entirely by hard facts and figures in its favor. The rate at which this sector of banking will grow will depend on how many user-friendly facilities are incorporated, the additional facilities that will be added and the way the concept is packaged for the general public.

It is unfortunately a fact that banks and their customers have rarely agreed on what is a useful facility and what isn’t. A lot of market research and customer polling will be required before the gap between what is needed in banking and what is available is filled. When that finally happens, the final frontier of online banking will indeed be explored.

By: Ross Bainbridge

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Before, if you still remember, I have talked about online saving account. Today, I will discuss about a quite similar thing which is online banking. Actually, it is quite a common trend nowadays to do banking activities online but for some countries like Malaysia (my home country), online banking is not been used widely. Maybe, the banking system there is not strongly developed yet. But, I expect online banking to be widely used in Malaysia in maybe 5 years time.

Okay, enough with some background of online banking in Malaysia. Let us talk about why we should or should not use online banking.

Advantages

From online banking, almost every transaction can be done from home. This is good as it saves a lot of our time. Now, we do not have to go down to a bank to do a transaction like transferring money from current to saving account. Before, this transaction only can be done at the bank since ATM machine cannot handle this.

By having online banking, we can monitor our account balance easily. This gives us more control over our budgeting plan (see this post about controlling main expenses). For example, I can now how many should I spend for the rest of the month by looking at the online statement. So, I don’t have to wait for monthly bank statement which sometimes will not be posted at all (I am currently using National Bank as my primary bank and have not received my bank statements for the last 2 months).

Disadvantages

Some banks charge online banking under service charge. For my National Bank online banking, they charge me about $1.00 a month although they said that I will not be charged as I am an international student (Damn! I hate National Bank).

And the biggest issue about online banking is security of your account. Since you are doing your transactions online, you information may be traced by other unwanted people. And by using your information like your online banking username and password, your money can be transferred away from your account in just a few seconds!

So, what am I trying to say here?

Basically, online banking is really useful in many ways but at the same time, the risk is sometimes quite high. So, do some research about your bank. You must know the level of security they offer for online banking. Ask your friends about their experience with the particular bank. And consider looking for other’s review online. For the New Zealand online banking system, I would say that Raboplus (operates under the Rabobank) and ASB are still the best. So, after all, the choice is yours. Make it wisely.

By: L. Lyme

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