Two Thirds of Brits Prefer Bank Clicks To Bank Clerks

Online banking is rapidly becoming the favoured method of UK bank customers to manage their finances with Web users logging in 110 times every year.

The research, conducted by Opinium Research for PayYourWay, an online-payment education firm, found that one in four of the 4,020 UK adults polled used Internet banking every day, with a further two in five using such services every week.

Safety First

The ease and convenience of managing money online is the main cause of this increase in popularity with only 13 percent of users continuing to use their local branch. However, it is less common among older users, with only a quarter of over 55s having ever used it.

The news follows previous research which revealed that over 200 million mobile phone users will have used mobile banking by the end of the year, with that figure set to double by the end of 2013.

Sandra Quinn from PayYourWay commented, “Internet banking is fast, convenient and available 24 hours a day – so it’s no surprise it’s now the nation’s favourite way to manage money.”

Almost four in five people said that they were confident in making online transactions but PayYourWay was keen to remind customers to exercise caution when accessing their banking details online.

Users should keep their operating system and anti-virus software up to date and safeguard PINs, passwords and sensitive information such as maiden names and dates of birth.

Cyber-attackers frequently use phishing scams, social tricks and malicious software to steal personal banking details. In one case, a variant of the Zeus Trojan stole nearly £675,000 from customers of one UK bank, leading to calls for stronger security settings to be implemented.

However the authorities are also stepping up their response and in August, the Metropolitan Police arrested members of a criminal gang believed to be responsible for the theft of millions of pounds from online bank accounts.