Money: Click start your banking online

NICK SOMMERLAD

THE Internet bank revolution may have taken its time to reach Ireland but it is beginning to take off.

TSB has become the fourth Irish high street bank to offer such a service, combining the traditional branch with an online wing.

The advantages of Internet banking are chiefly the convenience and the promise of lower costs.

Users can access their accounts round-the-clock from anywhere in the world.

Figures for the numbers of Internet banking customers in the country are hard to obtain and are quickly out-of-date in this fast- changing market.

Ciara Doyle, spokeswoman for the Irish Bankers' Federation, cited research which suggested that 55,000 Irish people - or eight per cent of the 700,000 people who then used the Internet - use online banking.

But the figure is likely to be significantly greater now with new customers signing up daily.

Ms Doyle said: "There are now one million Internet users in Ireland with banking showing strong growth. TSB is the latest to have launched an Internet banking service."

Recent research, before TSB entered the market, indicated that of Internet bank customers, 65 per cent are with AIB, 35 per cent with the Bank of Ireland and five per cent with Ulster Bank.

Ms Doyle said: "The two main issues surrounding Internet banking are the issue of security and improving consumer confidence."

On the subject, the federation's code of ethics and practices has this advice: "If you use Internet and/or telephone banking, your bank will ask you for additional information to ensure that information relating to your account is given only to you.

Your bank will provide you with registration numbers, PINs (personal identification numbers), passwords or will allow you to choose your own.

This information should be committed to your memory immediately and any written records of it destroyed."

The Bank of Ireland estimates it has around 100,000 Internet banking customers with its Banking 365 Online service.

Declan Reed, spokesman for the Bank of Ireland, said: "Twenty- four-hour banking offers you convenience.

"Today many of us have busy lifestyles which may not allow us the time to visit a branch every single time we want to process a routine banking transaction."

To access the account, a PIN, an Internet user ID and passwords are required.

The telephone banking service costs you nothing extra, except the cost of the call.

For those calling from within Ireland, the call costs one unit at local rate, no matter how long the call lasts.

Callers from outside the Republic are charged at international rates.

Users of the Internet service also pay for the phone call required to log-on.

Mr Reed does not think the Internet bank spells the end of the high street version.

He said: "It does not necessarily follow that an increase in the use of Internet banking will lead to branch closures - Internet banking is simply another channel."

The bank's internet customers currently pay the same for each transaction as traditional customers.

But Mr Reed said: "I think we will see a restructuring of banking fees and charges as the volume of people using Internet banking services increases."

NET CLIENTS CAN...

Check transactions on their accounts

Make an up-to-the-minute balance check

View details of their standing orders

Check the balance on their credit card and view all credit card transactions for the past 12 months

Pay their Bank of Ireland credit card bills

Transfer funds between their own Bank of Ireland accounts, for example from a savings account to a current account

Pay bills to several named utility companies, including the Electricity Supply Board, Eircell, Cablelink, Dublin Gas, Eircom and NTL

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