With the escalating popularity of the internet, an increasing number of industries are looking for methods to tap into this seamless medium in an attempt to keep up to date with the shifting technological penchant of their customers.

At present, just about anything can be done online with the remaining possibilities burgeoning by the day. The potential of the internet is ostensibly infinite and the banking industry decided it was not going to be left in the lurch.

Whilst the majority of people are familiar with the presence of online banking it is more than likely a large number of them have yet to have used it. This could very well be due to the fact that more than often we seem to find added comfort in working with real people and actual paper when dealing with matters related to money, as opposed to doing transactions in the seemingly aloof realm of cyberspace.

Despite personal preferences, online banking and traditional banking both have their pros and cons.

Pros and Prospects

First of all, online banking boasts noteworthy expedience and pragmatism. When you use online banking, checking account details, scheduling payments and dealing with deposits, can all be done with a mere few clicks of the mouse.

If you have upcoming payments due, scheduling multiple installments in advance can be easily managed online, in retrospect to the sometimes gruelling task of keeping up to date with paper statements. When banking online, specified amounts and the required dates of payments are automatically processed and sent accordingly by the bank on your behalf.

Travelling to the bank to ask for a financial statement is also not necessary; it can be downloaded from your online bank account which allows you see updated figures.

A lucrative benefit of internet banking is that it is cost-effective. A myriad of customers can be dealt with immediately. Hence, there is no need to have an unnecessary amount of staff. Subsequently, a considerable amount of administrative work is reduced from internet banking. Overheads on paper slips, forms and even seemingly trivial expenditures such as bank stationery have declined, ultimately helping increase the bank’s profit margin by a startling amount.

It is not essential to visit the local bank when applying for a loan as this too can be done online. The same applies to buying or selling stock as well as opening new bank accounts and closing old accounts. All of which being equally achievable as the more traditional procedures but without the tiresome paperwork clients had become accustomed to over time. More than ever this particular technological trend toward loans, insurance and banking is on the rise, mostly due to the acceptance of digital signatures around the globe.

Don’t Bank on It Being a Realm With No Shortcomings

For the majority of people the key issue is trust, or more correctly said, a lack of trust. Customers find themselves speculating over whether their transactions went through successfully or worrying that they clicked on the wrong button. Printing the transaction receipt as a routine practice is a pre-eminent method for overcoming such unease. By doing so, you can keep the receipt while waiting to receive confirmation that your transaction has been implemented successfully through notification in your bank statement or your online account.

Even though online banking provides a simpler means for managing your finances, it may be easier to keep up-to-date with your financial statements for budgeting purposes. The reason for this is online banking is similar in nature to credit cards; with easy access and it being so simple to use, it becomes easier to spend your money without any judgment on the reasons why you are spending in the first place.

An option for countering such trends and inclinations is to set up e-mail alerts which inform you when your account dips below a specified margin, however nothing is more effective than seeing it for yourself on paper or keeping your checkbook balanced.

In addition, receiving a credit card statement in the post and opening it on a monthly basis is an instant reminder to check if there are any strange or out of the ordinary charges appearing on your account. It is far more likely to forget to keep track of such information online therefore you should strive to have good money management skills.

Security

Hackers are able to break into virtually any computer system, so you can’t really be too sure that they won’t break into your bank’s system. Nevertheless, any online banking site you consider using should have statements on the type of security they use. It is also advised to email the bank or head down to your nearest branch to enquire and find out exactly what would happen if there were a security breach; if their answer sounds vague stress the point that you want more clarity on the topic or alternatively go to another bank.

The advantages and disadvantages of online banking are both equally persuasive – it makes life simpler for some people, forthrightly being a better way to bank. For other people it may be slightly more complex and utterly intimidating. This is why a great deal of people are now using an amalgam of both internet banking and physical banking. While banking online does not seem to be as tangible as physically depositing money at your local bank branch you can still do almost anything with online banking.

Arguably, the greatest benefits of online banking are the time and money you save. In the light of these two perceptions, more and more banks are offering internet banking as a feasible option for their customers.

At the end of the day, online banking makes life easier for the customers and bank employees alike.

About The Author
Compareshop specialises in financial price comparison in South Africa to compare home insurance as well as loans, credit card, medical and much more in the finance market in South Africa.

Banking experts estimate that up to £5bn may be sitting unclaimed in UK bank accounts that have gone ‘dormant’. What does this mean, and could you be entitled to a share in this huge amount of idle money?

A bank account goes dormant when, in the words of the British Bankers’ Association, a bank and a customer ‘lose touch with each other’. What this usually means in practice is that a customer has either passed away or moved house, and the bank haven’t been told and are unable to locate the account holder some time later.

If there are no transactions on an account over a period of around 12 months, the bank will write to the account holder at the last known address to ask them if they wish to keep the account open. If no reply is received, then the bank will change the status of the account to ‘dormant’. This means that from now on, no statements, chequebooks or other correspondance will be sent out to the customer.

The money in the account will still earn interest at whatever the normal rate of that account is, and the bank will still keep track of the account balance and keep a record of the last known address of the holder.

There are two main reasons for an account being made dormant. The first and most obvious one is to save the banks the administration costs of sending out statements and the like when there is no activity on the account from month to month (other than that initiated by the bank itself, such as interest payments).

The more important reason however is to guard against identity fraud. If a bank continues to send statements to an address when the account holder is no longer there to receive them, it is all too easy for these documents to end up in the hands of fraudsters, who could use the sensitive information they contain to begin a campaign of ID theft.

Most dormant accounts will have very small balances, but some will inevitably contain a substantial sum, often those belonging to someone who has passed away. If you think you may be entitled to money held in a dormant account, you can make a claim by filling in a form available from the bank in question.

You will need to give your reasons for making a claim, such as that the account belonged to a close relative whose estate was passed to you. You will also need to prove your own identity, and your connection to the original account holder if applicable.

If the bank don’t agree that you’re entitled to take over the account, you have the right to pursue an appeal, where your claim is re-examined. If the appeal fails, you can take your claim to the Financial Ombudsman Service, whose decision is final and binding.

Nicholas Hunt is a contributing writer for Onestop Finance, where you can find more information on bank accounts and unclaimed money.

In these days of identity theft, checking out your credit report is a good idea in order to make sure that everything on it is correct. However, once you have your copy in hand, you may be a bit puzzled as to how to decipher all those strange-looking abbreviations and numbers listed on the paper. Take heart – very few people understand how to read a credit report, especially if they are examining one for the very first time. All you need is a simple explanation of the wordage contained to intelligently zip through this information.

What’s In My Credit Report?

You first need to be aware of how a credit report is laid out. These reports normally are divided into four segments of information. These are:

• Personal Information that identifies you, like your name and Social Security number, the date you were born, present and past addresses, phone number(s), who you work for, and the same information about your spouse.
• Public Information lists the data that has to do with your financial history which is available via public record. If you have filed for bankruptcy, had a tax lien, or any sort of monetary judgment against you, it will be listed in this section.
• Credit History Information is a listing of all the different accounts you have, such as with utility companies, retailers, banks, credit card companies, and other lenders.
• The Inquiries section is a list of anyone who may have asked to view your credit report. Inquiries are usually divided into two separate sections, hard and soft.

Most of this information is simple to understand. It’s when you start to read the Credit History information that you may wind up with a headache! You’ll see the following entries for each account that you may have:

• The date that you opened the account
• What type of credit (department store, car loan, student loan)
• Whose name the account is in
• Loan amount or credit limit
• The total amount you owe on the account
• The minimum monthly payment or fixed payment amount
• Whether the account is open, closed, inactive, or paid
• Your payment history – late, always on time, etc

Now comes the part that makes most people feel like screaming – all those codes! But, you’ll never have to wonder what they mean again.

J – Joint

I – Individual

U – Undesignated

A – Authorized User

T – Terminated

M – Maker

C – Co-signor

B – On behalf of someone else

S – Shared

O – Open – the entire balance is due monthly

R – Revolving – Each month’s payment amount can be different

I – Installment – The same amount is due each month

0- Approved account, but not yet used

1 – Paid as per agreement

2 – 30 days or more past due

3 – 60 days or more past due

4 – 90 days or more past due

5 – 120 days past due or sent for collection

7 – Making payments as per a special arrangement

8 – Repossession

9 – Charged off

Once you know how to read a credit report, it is simple to check it for mistakes in order to keep your credit standing in good shape.

For more helpful tips on getting free credit rating try visiting http://www.creditreportguideonline.com, a popular credit report website that provides tips, advice and helpful resources including information on how to get a free FICO score.

Finance is a very vast field and a number of complex financial processes take place every day. It is quite possible that when the dealing between various parties is with the help of cheques, some differences might arise between the account statement and cash records. This is because, if a cheque is released on ending dates of a month, some time may elapse before it is realized and the money changes hands only in the next month.

This would get reflected in the cash book at the end of that particular month but not in the bank statement. This is because the money has not been released from the account but it has to be registered as outgoing cash. Take for instance, that you have signed a cheque on say 28th or 29th of a month. This cheque needs to be registered in your cash book against that particular date as outgoing cash. But, since it is month end and some time is needed for completion of various formalities, the money would be debited from your account only in the next month.

To sort out the differences between the cash book and bank statement, it is necessary that you first identify the differences between the entries in both of them. To achieve this purpose, you can take help of a bank reconciliation template. A bank reconciliation template would help you to identify the said differences. First of all, you need to check which entries are present in the account statement, but their corresponding entries are not there in cash book and make necessary adjustments.

You need to repeat the whole procedure by interchanging the position of cash book and bank statement. However, it is quite possible that at the day of reconciliation no change in the bank statement has been made, so do check for an appropriate day for making adjustments. Further, you can easily download a bank reconciliation template from various websites for free.

Learn more about Bank Reconciliation Template, please visiting http://www.gsyywz.com/general/exploring-bank-reconciliation-template/.

With the ease of online banking today, many people choose to do their banking from home. One bonus is that you can continue banking with the same financial institution, though you can do so from your home computer. With 24-hour access to account information and anytime transactions, banking has become much more convenient.

There are many benefits to online banking. You can avoid fees sometimes charged for teller transactions or check writing. Also, online banking options often include better deals on checking accounts, often with lower service fees and no monthly charges. It is easy to pay bills electronically, with funds taken directly from your account-check-free. And banking software, such as Quicken, enables you to download banking information from your account into a budget spreadsheet.

Most banks in America now offer online banking options. Some banks offer online banking in conjunction with online trading, allowing you to use one institution for a variety of financial needs. There are some institutions that specialize only in online banking and do not have any physical branches. These require online or phone transactions and the use of other banks’ ATMs.

This is one downfall of virtual banking. You may have to pay a fee for using a machine at another banking institution, and sometimes a fee from your own bank as well. Some banking institutions will waive ATM fees, as they know this can be a deterrent to potential customers. If you are an ATM user, make sure you research this before selecting a bank.

Another likely problem is making deposits. Direct-deposit options for paychecks are convenient; however, if you receive other checks you will need to deposit them yourself. With online banking, you may have to mail your deposit or make an electronic transfer from another bank account. This creates a longer lapse before you can access these funds.

Despite these issues, online banking appeals to many customers. Virtual banking allows you to take care of bills even while traveling. You can access your account whenever it is convenient to you, not just during banking hours. With this convenience, there is little excuse anymore for bounced checks.

Jeff Lakie is the founder of Banking Resources [http://www.medical-savings-account.info] a website providing information on banking [http://www.fast-online-banking.info].