Ten years of online banking, yet concerns persist

Online banking in the UK will reach its tenth anniversary this week, with the country's first internet banking service launched by Nationwide on 27 May 1997.

Since around 13,000 people registered for Nationwide's online banking service in 1997, online banking has grown rapidly - the company now has more than 3m internet banking customers.

Online banking has become increasingly popular over the last decade, with the number of people using the service rising five fold over the last six years.

Online banking stats:

• In 2006, 18.1m  Britons banked online, with the number exceeding those using telephone banking. Today, half of all internet users in the UK bank online.
  
  
• 53% of internet bank users bank online because they believe it is convenient, while 11% say they use internet banking because they can’t always get to a branch.
  
  
• Half of users (49%) log on to their internet banks to manage these accounts after 6pm in the evening with just under a third (31%) logging on during the day (8am - 6pm).
  
  
• Internet banking is regularly used by 37% of adults in the UK,

There are concerns about the safety of online banking, with fraud on the rise recently. This issue is a reason why many more don't bank online - just 31% of those who don't bank online perceive it as 'safe', compared with 86% of internet bank users.

Banks are working on improving security though, with PIN card readers being sent out to customers to add more security to their transactions.

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