Online banking is the best, and generally safest, way to deal with your finances. Many web users are very hesitant to go online at their bank, but it is truly the best way to guard against identity theft. The vast majority of identity theft involving banks is started by mail theft. With one piece of paper from your mailbox, a thief has your name, address, and account number. That is enough information to cause quite a headache.
So yes, online banking is safe. I like the safety and convenience of getting my statements online as well. I can download and save my statements as a PDF and keep them in a secure folder on my laptop. From there I can print, save to a flash drive, store online, or reference past activity.
How do you sign up? Go to your bank’s website. At the top of the screen look for https at the beginning of the web address. The little “s” is the important part. That means secure.
From your bank website look for a sign up now link. You should just have to enter a few details about yourself to get signed up. A word of caution, make sure that in addition to HTTPS, it says the true, correctly spelled bank site address. People can build a site clone to steal your login data.
This was not meant to scare people, just to inform. If you are already on online banking, you are ready for my post this week on starting to track your spending online. This will lead to keeping a budget online.
This image is of ING Direct, one of the few banks I use. They are 100% online. No bank branch to go to. They even give out $25 if you sign up using a referral link. If you use this one, I get a $10 bonus too!
