According to investorwords.com, online banking is a system that allows individuals to perform banking activities at home, via the internet. These activities range from shopping at your favorite store online, or paying your mortgage and visa bill over the internet. Most banks offer an online banking option for all people who have accounts with them. There are also some banks that offer only internet banking. These banks do not exist as physical buildings. There are dangers and risks to online banking, but these can be alleviated, as I will outline in my posts to come. Online banking is relatively new, it has only been developed in the past decade, and been used more and more in the last couple of years. People find online banking less time- consuming and more convenient, but are nervous because of recent scandals, which is understandable. There are also advantages to using online banking, one being that it is quite useful for immobile and elderly people, to do grocery shopping, as well as gift and clothes shopping from their favourite stores. One of the advantages to online banking is that you can get a bank statement sent right to your e-mail, instead of just having it sent in the mail. Not only is this faster than regular mail, it also saves paper, which in turn saves thousands of trees a year, and the number is steadily increasing as the years pass. Another benefit is that the banks that operate solely online have lower operating costs, and therefore offer their customers higher interest rates.
