Online Financial Tips

Archive for the ‘Internet Banking’ Category

Thinking about opening an internet bank account? Well there are a few things you should know, first, before you open one.

The first thing to know is that internet bank accounts are online only accounts. Now, you may think this is obvious from the name, but many people don’t realize this. If you have an internet bank account, your account management will only be handled online through a website internet. This may be a bit off putting for some people who want to deal with a physical bank. If you want to do your banking only online, you are going to have to get over this fear.

There are many compelling advantages to internet banking.

1. You can bank anywhere, in any country
2. You can open an internet banking account even if your are “banned” from opening a traditional bank account
3. You can deposit, withdraw, and transfer money online
4. You have a debit card you can use to make purchases

As you can see, there really is very little difference between a traditional bank account and an online bank account. Now your best option for opening one of these accounts is to look around online.

Internet banking has become quite popular the past few years and there are quite a few online banks all vying for your business. A consumer who wants to find a deal, can. The key is to spend the time comparing what’s offered by the different banks and choose a banking package that best suits your needs.

Banking services in India were just restricted to Deposit of Cheques and withdrawal of cash up until 2 decades ago.

With economic liberalization setting in about 2 decades ago, most of the old economy banks – which were government controlled – tried to keep pace with the rapidly changing economic scenario, and a couple of them succeeded in it too.

However the greatest spin-off of the new economic order was the emergence of Private Sector banks. These banks were extremely people friendly, offered variety of services, cut down the red-tape prevalent earlier, created single point contact for a whole range of products and services, introduced computerization in every aspect of their operation.

It must be mentioned that the Indian Banking System’s Apex body, namely Reserve Bank of India, played an extremely proactive and positive role in the paradigm shift that is now being witnessed by the populace of the country. In fact Reserve bank of India made it mandatory in the year 1990 to implement computerization in their entire sphere of activities, and this single biggest decision was in the forefront of all the technological changes that were embraced by the banking sector. Initially this decision was imposed as a pre-condition for new generation private sector banks, but soon most of the government sector too followed suit, seeing the immense benefit, and increase in the productivity that this decision brought about.

In the old economic order, the consumer was required to go to the bank, but the reverse happened with liberalization. Now banks came to the doorstep of the consumer, understand his needs, and many a times tailor-made banking solutions to suit to the customer. The banks now hired professionals not just from economic background, but from Engineering and other multitude of scientific streams, in order to deeply understand the unique requirements of both the retail consumers as well as large multinational corporations.

They went a step ahead, and felt that consumers need not come all the way to the bank for mundane and routine tasks, and to this effect introduced Internet banking system.

They also started playing the role of payment collection centers for various services such as CAT Admission Forms for IIT entrance exams, managing the initial public offers launched by various organizations, and many such services.

All these were possible because of enabling most of their services internet enabled, and due to rapid computerization.

Internet banking has also made a huge positive contribution in integrating Indian Banks with the banking system of the rest of the world in a much faster and effective manner. This in turn, has immensely helped the Indian Industry in doing business with the world’s new economic order.

Today banks in India are more of a financial supermarket, with customer friendly officers paying personal attention to the customers, and appropriately elegant ambience to match the transformation that the banks have undergone in the past two decades.

A very famous cash management tool that banks now use is their online banking access. Some call it internet banking, online banking or other catchy names but basically, it allows clients of banks to access their account online, view their balance, check the history of their account, pay bills, transfer funds and other actions previously available only if you physically visit a branch of your bank. Online banking saves time, effort, gas, parking fees and it lets you avoid traffic rush hours. More and more banks are now moving towards having this tool and it is gaining popularity faster than the earlier version of a similar tool, which was telephone banking. But how did internet banking start? Here is a brief online banking history.

It is believed that online banking began in 1995. It was October 6 and Presidential Savings Bank offered an alternative to the usual branch banking by offering an online access of bank services. This opened the gates for banks solely existing in the internet and allowed other physical banks to join in. Nowadays, it is rare to see huge banks that offer no online banking services as more and more people get connected to the web. There are also more and more banks that advertise on the web and there are now a huge number of web domains owned by banks. This is basically the start of the online banking history.

Today, 30 banks in the US exist only in cyberspace and their depositors grow exponentially due to the fact that they are virtually accessible 24/7 and they are hassle free. There are several types of people who avail of online banking services. There are those that see it as a toll that they can use but do not really explore what else they can do with it aside from balance checking and bills payments. For other transactions, they would rather go straight to the source. Then, there are those that are avid internet users, mostly those that make a living or spend half of their day connected to the web. These are actually so dependent on online banking that if a bank does not offer this service, they won’t even consider that bank.

It has now been a decade and three years since the birth of online banking and research shows that it is 100 more cost efficient for banks to run on cyberspace than to have the actual teller to process transactions. However, a pit fall here is that not all Americans are ready for this sort of thing. Some would rather have a face to face interaction with tellers as trust is till a big issue, especially when it comes to money (although online banking virtually destroys human error). Also, research indicate that although phone banking is slowly losing popularity, it is still the number one go-to when clients are at a lost.

Online banking history is still in the making. More and more advances are being made each day on this field and with that being said, let us expect more on internet banking.

We all know about internet banking and most of us use it quite often as well, but few of us actually understand about the history of internet banking and how it all came out. Knowing the history of internet banking can be incredibly useful, especially since it will allow you to have more respect for the little things that you take for granted.

How it All Began

Computers themselves have really come an enormous way since their initial establishment, as the earliest electronic computers were so large that they would take up the entire area of a room, while today some are so small that they can hardly be seen at all.

In today’s world, computers play an incredibly large role in the way the world exists in general, and the majority of tasks could actually not be completed if not for the use of computers. Although there are certainly some areas and jobs that cannot yet be completed solely by computers and which thus still require actual manpower, for the most part, computers have helped to make life significantly easier, productive, and more convenient for us all.

The history of Internet banking obviously begins with the history of the Internet, which is notoriously known throughout the world now as a household name, but which actually did not even exist too long ago.

Although the term Internet was first adopted around the year 1974, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the Internet became a really universal adoption. The Internet grew incredibly throughout the 90s, and as it continued to grow, various different search engines and Web directories were created in order to assist Web browsers, as well to track pages on the Web and allow people to find things more easily.

Internet banking has been around for quite a few years now, but has really only become prominent over the past year or so in particular. Internet banking offers an array of different advantages to the user, including: account balances and history including year-to-date information, the ability to transfer money from one account to another and to payees for bill payments, check history, reorders, and stop payments, check credit card balances and statements, complete online loan applications, secure interactive messaging with staff, and much more.

Internet banking basically allows you to be able to do everything that you can in your regular banking institution, only with the benefit that you can do it all right from the convenience of your own home. Not only is this great because you can be comfortable and have peace of mind knowing that you can keep track yourself of all your banking issues, but as well it allows for more ease because you never have to worry about rushing out and making it to the bank in time, as you can complete Internet banking tasks around the clock.

Halifax is an insurance and finance company in the United Kingdom. It is an extension of Lloyds banking group. Halifax is considered to be the UK’s biggest provider of saving accounts and residential mortgages. But, keeping these aside, no one likes to stand in the bank queue for long hours. In fact, nobody has the time to do so. In order to make things easier, Halifax has started its own internet banking. Halifax internet banking has enabled its customers to make most of their transactions online, by logging on to its official website.

Through internet banking, Halifax has brought all the accounts of its customers to a single portfolio. It can include share dealing and credit cards also, if those services are chosen. There is an attractive as well as innovative service known as the websaver which is exclusively available in Halifax internet banking, which draws a high interest rate while allowing the customers to monitor their accounts. It is useful for saving money for the future. The user has access to mortgage calculator to find the right option. Another feature in this type of banking is that the customers can see a large number of transaction statements. It gives the freedom to transfer money to any bank in the UK which includes paying bills also. It is possible to schedule the transactions to any date. Another feature provided is, the holiday money service in which the customers can order currency of any country online. It also provides travel insurance. These benefits have helped its customers from getting away from the tedious form-filling procedure. But there are some loop holes also. There is a limit to viewing transactions and it has no option for downloading data. The website is fully protected from hacking and frauds and there is no financial risk in using the services. While logging into the online account, the user is asked for three types of information. The first two are the username and password. The third information changes from time to time. For example, the user may be asked to enter his birth date or birthplace. There is a help button in the website, where the user can clear any query.

The Halifax internet banking has indeed proved to be an easy way for money transactions, getting loans, etc. In today’s world, the internet has reached even the inaccessible regions thereby making online banking a boon for the banking sector for the mundane.

Offshore banking is nothing more complicated than banking in a country where you are not a citizen or resident. If you live in the US, banking in Canada is just as much “offshore” as banking somewhere more exotic like the Caribbean or a Pacific island.

Unfortunately, some of the countries which offer the most benefits to the offshore investor are not always close to home. The benefits of offshore banking have been clear for decades, but usually only available to the very rich. You may imagine someone on a private yacht making a call to their Cayman Islands bank, handling large transactions incognito. But the expenses incurred when traveling abroad or wiring money by telephone made the reality of offshore banking prohibitively expense.

Fortunately, with the advent of new technology, internet offshore banking has now become secure enough to be seen as an alternative to traditional means. In fact in some ways it’s a lot more secure than traveling in person to an offshore jurisdiction. This is handy because the most private and confidential offshore banks will be those that have least connection with your home country, especially NO physical presence.

Internet offshore banking keeps your banking fees minimal because the entire process is automated. In addition, you are not dependent on working hours to do business. You can order the execution of your financial transactions 24/7 wherever you are in the world – with as little as a laptop and internet access. SSL (Secure Socket Layering) encryption prevents third parties from seeing what you are doing or checking your account. Even the most complex financial transactions can be executed by sending online messages within this secure system. In this way you can be sure that your financial affairs are kept private between you and the executors.

Internet offshore banking certainly makes banking offshore easier, but going from account opening to sending your first wire entirely online is not something that many banks or offshore service providers will offer. Often the process will involve visiting a jurisdiction at some point in person, multiple phone calls, and unearthing numerous documents such as bank reference letters, and information on the source of your funds. Other documents may need to be revised by an attorney. In most cases the process is certainly not instant.

The amount of paperwork and hoops you need to go through will depend heavily on who you bank with. If you are lucky, it could be nothing more than a notarized copy of your passport and a notarized proof of residence – but this will be the legal minimum. You should regard anything less with suspicion.