Online banking

[DFWAJG 4]

I just LOVE it! Paid all my bills in fewer than 5 minutes! Love love love it. Just thought I'd share. :P

[mdrejhon 8]

And mobile online banking too.

In a supermarket lineup, on my smartphone, doing a quick 30-second money transfer between two bank accounts, to make sure I have enough money for the groceries before I unload the cart and swipe the card.

Okay, at least during the low parts of the recession when cashflow is tight and I need to rebalance between accounts.

Or transferring money between me and my spouse's account using an online interbank transfer between two competing banks (which Canadian banks now support, called Interac Email Money Transfer) - funds clearing in less than 20 minutes without leaving home. Especially since we work in separate cities. And I can even do this from my mobile browser too while waiting for a train!

Or, yes, paying bills over satellite Internet from our Caribbean cruise vacation (where I became engaged 15 minutes ino New Year's!), and also sending an online instalment payment to my taxman.

[DFWAJG 4]

You the Boss! I've got to get myself one of those smart phones.

[JohnMitchell 16]

I only have a dumb phone, but I do almost all my banking online. Most of our bills go straight to our favorite credit card. Those that won't do that are paid automatically with a electronic withdrawl from checking. The only bill I really pay is the one main credit card once a month, and I might set that up for autopay too. It's nice to know you're never late on you bills.

[FlyingJ 0]

I've been a USAA customer since I was a kid, and they continually take online banking to a whole new level. I was blown away a couple years ago when I started being able to scan a check at home to deposit. I don't even know how to describe how great it was last week when for the first time I used USAA's iphone application to deposit my check directly from the phone. UNFREAKINBELIEVABLE!!!

USAA used to be a bit of a pain in the ass when I had to mail checks and deal with the lag time. Shit, now I can have a check deposited within 30 seconds of it being handed to me. Freakin brilliant!

I too have pulled the funds transfer at the point of sale. Forgot to make a transfer before I went. Saw the person starting to try my card again, quick hopped on the iphone, she said I seem to be having trouble. Not sure why. Could you give it one more try? Bingo, money was there!

Sometimes I think technology is more trouble than it's worth. But I'll be giddy enough about depositing checks on my phone for long enough to forget about that for a while.

Killing threads since 2004.

[MikeJD 0]

I was pretty late coming to online banking too, but I think it's great. I'm financially better off, because having such easy visibility of my money makes me manage it much better. I never even used to open the paper statements that came through the post.

I think people's security concerns are the biggest barrier, but you just have to be heads-up - for example, making sure you only use the URLs you know are valid, rather than following links in emails etc. Also, because you can check your accounts so easily you get very early sight of any suspicious transactions.

[mdrejhon 8]

Quote

I've been a USAA customer since I was a kid, and they continually take online banking to a whole new level. I was blown away a couple years ago when I started being able to scan a check at home to deposit. I don't even know how to describe how great it was last week when for the first time I used USAA's iphone application to deposit my check directly from the phone. UNFREAKINBELIEVABLE!!!

Wirelessly depositing a physical cheque in 30 seconds from anywhere in the world -- now that's impressive. I'd love that capability someday.