Online banking (or Internet banking) is a term used for performing transactions, payments etc. over the Internet through a bank, credit union or building society's secure website. This allows customers to do their banking outside of bank hours and from anywhere where Internet access is available. In most cases a web browser is utilized and any normal internet connection is suitable. No special software or hardware is usually needed. Banker redirects here; see wiktionary:banker for more meanings. ... A credit union is a not-for-profit co-operative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members, through the election of a volunteer Board of Directors elected from the membership itself. ... A building society is a financial institution, owned by its members, that offers banking and other financial services, especially mortgage lending. ... An example of a web browser (Mozilla Firefox), displaying the English Wikipedia main page. ...

Features

Online banking usually offers such features as:

• Bank statements, with the possibility to import data in a personal finance program such as Quicken or Microsoft Money
• Electronic bill payment
• Funds transfer between a customer's own checking and savings accounts, or to another customer's account
• Investment purchase or sale
• Loan applications and transactions, such as repayments
• Account aggregation to allow the customers to monitor all of their accounts in one place whether they are with their main bank or with other institutions.

There are a growing number of so-called virtual banks that operate exclusively online. These online banks have low costs compared to traditional banks and so they often offer higher interest rates. This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Intuit Logo Intuit, Inc. ... Microsoft Money 2006 Premium Microsoft Money is Microsofts personal finance software for computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system. ... Electronic bill payment is a feature of online banking, similar in its effect to a giro, allowing a depositor to send money from his demand account to a creditor or vendor such as a public utility or a department store to be credited against a specific account. ... what is it thomas? A giro, also called a direct deposit, is a banking term for a method of payment. ... Includes demand deposits, ATS, NOW, and other checkable deposits. ... Savings deposits are accounts maintained by banks, savings and loan associations, credit unions, and mutual savings banks that pay interest but can not be used directly as money. ... Invest redirects here. ... A loan is a type of debt. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A virtual bank is a bank with a very small or inexistent branch system. ... An interest rate is the price a borrower pays for the use of money he does not own, and the return a lender receives for deferring his consumption, by lending to the borrower. ...

Security

Security token devices

Protection through single password authentication, as is the case in most secure Internet shopping sites, is not considered secure enough for personal online banking applications in some countries. Online banking user interfaces are secure sites (generally employing the https protocol) and traffic of all information - including the password - is encrypted, making it next to impossible for a third party to obtain or modify information after it is sent. However, encryption alone does not rule out the possibility of hackers gaining access to vulnerable home PCs and intercepting the password as it is typed in (keylogging). There is also the danger of password cracking and physical theft of passwords written down by careless users. Image File history File links 800px-Internet_Banking_no_name. ... Image File history File links 800px-Internet_Banking_no_name. ... Several types of security tokens. ... A password is a form of secret authentication data that is used to control access to a resource. ... Authentication (Greek: αυθεντικός = real or genuine, from authentes = author ) is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the thing are true. ... https is a URI scheme which is syntactically identical to the http: scheme normally used for accessing resources using HTTP. Using an https: URL indicates that HTTP is to be used, but with a different default port (443) and an additional encryption/authentication layer between HTTP and TCP. This system... In a security context, a Hacker refers to a type of computer hacker who is involved in computer security/insecurity, specializing in the discovery of exploits in systems (for exploitation or prevention), or in obtaining or preventing unauthorized access to systems through skills, tactics and detailed knowledge. ... Apple Macintoshes like the iMac Core Duo are personal computers. ... Keystroke logging is a diagnostic used in software development that captures the users keystrokes. ... Password cracking is the process of recovering secret passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system. ...

Many online banking services therefore impose a second layer of security. Strategies vary, but a common method is the use of transaction numbers, or TANs, which are essentially single use passwords. Another strategy is the use of two passwords, only random parts of which are entered at the start of every online banking session. This is however slightly less secure than the TAN alternative and more inconvenient for the user. A third option, used in many European countries and currently being trialled in the UK is providing customers with security token devices capable of generating single use passwords unique to the customer's token (this is called two-factor authentication or 2FA). Another option is using digital certificates, which digitally sign or authenticate the transactions, by linking them to the physical device (e.g. computer, mobile phone, etc). While most online banking in the United States still uses single password protection, the FDIC has issued regulations requiring that banks implement more secure authentication mechanisms by the end of 2006. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... TAN is an acronym formed from the phrase Transaction Authentication Number. ... Several types of security tokens. ... Two-factor authentication (T-FA) is any authentication protocol that requires two independent ways to establish identity and privileges. ... In cryptography, a public key certificate (or identity certificate) is a certificate which uses a digital signature to bind together a public key with an identity — information such as a the name of a person or an organisation, their address, and so forth. ... Digital signature is a term with confusing reference. ... The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

Banks in many European countries (including the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium) are offering online banking for e-commerce payments directly from customer to merchants. For instance, see iDEAL. Scandinavia is a historical and geographical region centered on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. ... Electronic commerce, EC, e-commerce or ecommerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. ...

Fraud

Main article: Internet fraud

Some customers avoid online banking as they perceive it as being too vulnerable to fraud. The security measures employed by most banks can never be completely safe, but in practice the number of fraud victims due to online banking is very small. This is probably due to the fact that a relatively small number of people use internet banking compared with the total number of banking customers world wide. Indeed, conventional banking practices may be more prone to abuse by fraudsters than online banking. Credit card fraud, signature forgery and identity theft are far more widespread "offline" crimes than malicious hacking. Bank transactions are generally traceable and criminal penalties for bank fraud are high. Online banking becomes less secure if users are careless, gullible or computer illiterate. An increasingly popular criminal practice to gain access to a user's finances is phishing, whereby the user is in some way persuaded to hand over their password(s) to a fraudster. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Credit card fraud is a kind of fraud where a merchant (business, service provider, seller, etc. ... John Hancocks signature is one of the most prominent on the United States Declaration of Independence. ... Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. ... Identity theft is a term first emerging in U.S. literature circa 1996. ... A hack in progress in Lobby 7 at MIT. Hack is a term in the slang of the technology culture which has come into existence over the past few decades. ... This phishing attempt, disguised as an official email from a (fictional) bank, attempts to trick the banks members into giving away their account information by confirming it at the phishers linked website. ...

See also

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of

E-Commerce and E-Business

• Current account
• Telephone banking
• Guide to E-payments
• Online lenders