Money Watch – Personal Finance Blog

Online banking passed a bit of a milestone recently, with the news that half the UK’s internet users now bank online.

Online banking has been around for about 12 years now, and there are now 20 million bank customers logging on to check their balances, move money between accounts, set up Direct Debits and standing order and apply for new products.

The benefits are clear – you can check your transactions at any time of the day, from the comfort of your sofa, even in your under-pants, and for many of us it’s the main interaction we now have with our banks – many in their teens and twenties won’t have ever dealt with their banks in any other way. There are drawback of course, such as the security worries and fears of fraud.

But that wasn’t something that worried Barclays in their ads promoting online banking featuring Robbie Coltrane, it was all about the convenience.

Staggeringly, these ads first aired 10 years ago. Interestingly, Barclays had to change the ad after complaints that they had 20 minutes of downtime for maintenance each night.

Not sure we’d all still want to be bank managers as the ad suggests though.

photo credit: Damien Pollet