Be honest – when did you last update your checkbook with your latest deposit? Or withdrawal? Do you have months worth of bank statements to crosscheck with your checkbook recordings? Or do you just throw away those statements anyway? In today’s world of debit and credit cards, the checkbook and paper statement are quickly joining the fate of the dinosaurs. And, online banking is making the monitoring of accounts, payments, and deposits simpler and easier.
The Benefits of an Online Account
Banks today have responded to higher credit and debit card usage by making online banking easy and highly accessible. Some people choose to use their online banking access as a way to track their accounts on a daily or weekly basis instead of waiting until the end of the month to make sure that everything has cleared. And, online banking accounts are available 24 hours and provide you with more information than the bank’s automated telephone service.
If you use the same bank for your financial needs – savings, checking, credit cards, loans, mortgage, 401 (k), investments etc. – then the online banking can let you track all of these accounts at once. Many also allow you to download your banking activities to Excel or Quicken, so that you can update your personal finance tracking system.
Paying your bills and making transfers between accounts takes just a few minutes with online banking. For bill paying, you can set up an automatic payment system between the service provider (whether your cell phone service, car insurance, or utilities) and your bank. If the amount is the same each month, like on a car loan, then you can set the date and the recurring amount for each payment. You can also easily track the payments that you have already made and change or update your payment schedule and amounts.
Transfers are made in the same way. Simply connect the accounts between which the transfers occur and then you can set a regular transfer schedule. Or you can make a one time transfer from one account to another. For example if you are buying a new HDTV, you can make sure that you have enough in your checking account to cover its total cost.
Banks rarely charge extra for online banking, which makes it an easy and convenient feature to add to your banking.
Keeping Your Money Safe & Secure
Banks know that their customers need to trust that their money and their banking activities are completely safe. With this in mind, they have designed online banking sites that are highly secure. Most sites have you create a login name, password, site key, and answer extra security questions. If you aren’t banking from your home computer, then the site will ask you the security questions to verify that you are who you say you are. Also, most sites will automatically log you out of your account if you are not actively using the page for a set amount of time.
In addition, if you are concerned about being a victim of identity theft, online banking makes it easy to set initial fraud alerts. You can also change access to your online accounts by altering your login ID, password, and security questions.
Keep in mind that with online banking, you need a safe Internet connection. In addition, if you choose to make online banking your primary form of banking, make sure to consistently check your accounts at least weekly. Saving receipts from credit and debit purchases and also keeping a written log of all of those transactions can help guarantee that your account balances are correct. They’ll also show you what deposits and withdrawals are still outstanding and have not been recorded in your online account.
Finding the Right Banking Service
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