Who would every have thought that you would be able to transfer money from one account to another at the click of a button on your computer, or even pay bills or check account balances, but that is the reality of the times we live in today.
No longer do we have to leave our homes and join long frustrating lines in the bank to make a payment to our loans, credit cards or even transfer money from one account to the other, and that convenience is quite refreshing. As a matter of fact, that convenience saves time and in some cases maybe even money.
It makes banking around the clock a reality and no longer a farfetched possibility, and that facility does not need the banks to keep their branches open 24 hours a day to offer this service to us. This is perhaps one of the biggest advantages of Internet banking.
I know that there are some people who will be sceptical about using such a service, to be quite honest I was too.
However, after trying it just once, I was hooked and have vowed never to join a bank line again. It was so much easier not to go to the bank to ask a financial statement, when I can quite easily download it from my account online.
It allows me to have my account information available around the clock, regardless of where I may be in the world and ensures that I always pay my bills on time and avoid arduous late fees that can be applied if I dont. Whats more, I can schedule future payments from my bank account from thousands of miles away and never miss a payment.
However as I said, Internet banking though it has many benefits, there are also risks and regardless of how at ease we may feel using Internet banking there is no way that we can deny that those risks exist.
Nonetheless, I suppose, like me, most people tend not to worry about those risks because the convenience it affords us far outweighs any concerns that we may have.
I suppose though, that while we trust the banks systems to protect us from such things as identity theft and theft of passwords which could result in those same accounts being cleaned out also at the click of a button, we should still engage in some measure of caution to protect ourselves.
Nonetheless, there are things we can do to safeguard our money. One such thing, is to never give out your passwords or pin codes to anyone and never pay your bills by accessing your bank account through a third-party.
Additionally, such activity should be limited to your personal computer, so I do not suggest that you ever conduct your banking on a public computer system.
Granted these are not sure-fire ways to protect your accounts as hackers are getting more innovative themselves as the technology increases, but it is a step in the right direction.
This blog post is an excerpt from my diary, I have maintained since 1995. This post was written in 2008 when I was introduced to the concept of Online Banking.
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