Using Online Banking, Is It A Good Idea? Did you ever wonder if it was a good idea to use online banking? Does it scare you to see your account online with all your precious data? There is no doubt online banking is extremely convenient whether it’s accomplished by a cell phone or computer. Most online banks if not all, allow you to schedule direct payments. This is a great feature since it’s sort of like fire and forget. That’s a term that is usually used for guided missiles, but it does seem to fit automatic payments too. Another great feature is being able to deposit checks without going to the bank. I for one never would have believed this feature would have been added to online banking a few years ago. Quite frankly it seemed impossible since a bank was not getting the original check, thanks to high powered computers the banks were able to keep better track of things like this and when they felt confident enough they could stop a check from being cash the second time if somebody came in with the original, there were all set to go. All they needed was an app. The apps are so simple once you are signed in and get the focus correct on each side of the check the camera will automatically snap a picture and you are finished and voilà after a day or two the money is usually added to your account depending on what type of check it was which you cashed. Most of the time online banking is dependable but like everything else it is subject to human error. I have seen a couple of errors over the years and so have many other people. Many times, these errors are only reflected online and not carried through to the original account. I saw a mathematical error a few years ago and I called up to have it corrected. The tech department which handles online banking had a hard time finding what went wrong but eventually they corrected it and it only existed online, the account was correct. Another time an automatic payment which was made was not listed. That was a little harder to fix, but eventually it was problem solved. One thing which really scares me however is the thought of dealing with the bank online that doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar presence. I know people do it but I always have the fear of something goes wrong and the bank goes out I would be left holding the bag. This may not be true but just the thought of it keeps me away from any bank like that. So why would people deal with a bank like this which is only online? The answer is the fees and charges are probably less and even the interest might be a little higher. The last survey eyesore said that 42% of all banking transactions are taking place online and there is even a breakdown which shows 30% of those transactions are from cell phones. ATMs have slipped to only 5% of all transactions. There is no doubt about it online banking is here to stay. I guess I’m old-fashioned because when I needed an account I went to a bank, filled out the paperwork and opened the account, but apparently this is not how most people do it anymore. Almost ¾ of all bank accounts are being opened online. The funny part about this is I went to the bank since I didn’t want any problems and after the account was opened, I couldn’t get on it online so I called up the tech people and they reviewed the paperwork and said I didn’t fill it out correctly. I told them I wasn’t the one who filled out the paperwork, it was done by a bank officer and they immediately became dumbfounded. Anyway, they corrected the problem and everything has been fine. It just proves sometimes when we try and be very careful it doesn’t work. There are still some people who believe online banking is not safe and the older a person is the more this enters into the decision not to use it. I can understand that because older people are not really into computing as much as younger ones are, and the older the person the less likely they will compute anything. Originally, I had this idea for keeping track of my bank account and that was to use software which will remain nameless, that would contact the bank every day and get all the information and list it on a spreadsheet type page. When I first purchased the software, it worked for a few days and I thought to myself this is great I will never have to go online except to conduct business. What I didn’t know then was I was going to have a lot of problems. It turned out the bank was constantly making changes to protect itself from being hacked and I certainly couldn’t blame them for that. Those changes was stopping my software from connecting to the bank online. I tried contacting the software company and they would say things like we are sorry and were working on the problem. I noticed many people were extremely unhappy with this software and after about a year I was so disgusted I stop using it. The original company sold off that division and I can understand why. A much better option turned out to be Microsoft Excel to make notations in once a day of any changes to the account. In all honesty I have to say there may have been down time at the bank I use but I don’t recall it, and everything seems to be going pretty smooth online. There is always one thing in the back of your mind however when you do online banking especially when you hear about big commercial companies getting hacked. You begin to wonder when will the time come when your bank account will be hacked? It does seem like it is bound to happen sooner or later and has happened to many of the credit card companies. So far it hasn’t seem to happen to the bank I use. There are hundreds of thousands of attacks online against banks every day. One might say they are one of the preferred targets of criminals. In the first six months of 2019 it is said there was 3,494 successful cyberattacks against financial institutions and the number was said to come from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. As computers get more powerful the number of attacks will probably continue to increase.
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