Section 9.1. Online Banking


9.1. Online Banking

Many major American banksCitibank, JP Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual, and so onhave online banking capabilities. In most cases, all you need to sign up is your ATM/debit card, personal identification number (or PIN, otherwise known as your ATM passcode), and one of your bank account numbers . Check your monthly bank statement for the digits.

Most banks require that you use a relatively modern browser (technically, one that offers 128-bit encryption). If you're using Internet Explorer 5.5 or later on Windows, Safari on the Mac, or Firefox on either Mac or Windows, you should be fine.

Once you sign up online, you can log into your bank's Web site just like you'd log in to eBay, Amazon, or any other password-protected Web site.

Once you're logged in, you can do a number of things with your accounts online, including:

  • Check balances and account activity (Figure 9-1)

  • Pay bills online (Section 9.1.1)

  • Read your monthly account statements on the Web

  • Perform real-time money transfers to your linked accounts

  • Perform money transfers to accounts in other banks

  • Do international and domestic wire transfers

  • Receive banking alerts via email or mobile phone

  • See scanned images of cleared checks

Figure 9-1. Here at Washington Mutual, you can see exactly how much money is in each of your accounts with a quick trip to the bank's online branch.

The main thing you can't do online is deposit physical items like checks and cash into your account; they're a little hard to stuff through an Internet connection, no matter how broad your band is.

But you can do things like check to make sure your paycheck's direct deposit has landed, transfer money between checking and savings accounts, and do a lot of the little things that used to mean, at the very least, hauling yourself to an ATM. Many banks also let you download your financial data to programs like Quicken or Microsoft Money.


Note: If you do your financial business from a Windows computer, keep your computer safe with the suggestions in Chapter 21, especially by installing an Internet security suite and an anti-spyware program. These programs protect your computer from Internet invaders who'd like nothing more than to swipe your secret passwords and account information for their own nefarious purposes.

9.1.1. Paying Bills

Tired of running out of checks, getting paper cuts from return envelopes, or scrounging around for increasingly expensive postal stamps? With online bill payment, you can chuck all that into the shredder and disburse your utilities, services, and other bills with convenient , tree-friendly electronic payments.

What's especially great about paying bills electronically isactually, there are two great things.

First, you can set up recurring regular payments (like your mortgage or cable TV bill) to go out automatically, so you don't forget. Say goodbye to late fees and service charges.

Second, you can sit down and do your bills all in one session, even though their due dates are scattered throughout the month. You just tell your bank when you want each one mailed, essentially postdating all of your payments. The beauty here is that the money stays in your account until the last possible moment, earning interest for you (instead of for the utility, phone, or cable company, which would have happened if you'd paid early ).

There are three ways to pay bills online:

  • Use your own bank's online bill-payment feature.

  • Make many payments directly through the recipient's Web site with your credit or debit card orif you're sure of the billerby authorizing the company to make a withdrawal from your checking account.

  • Use a third-party bill-payment service like CheckFree (www.checkfree.com) or PayTrust (www.paytrust.com); most of these companies gather up your bills and ping you with email alerts when you've got a payment coming up.

When you pay your bills online, you get an onscreen record of the transaction and can keep track of past and present payments.

With the online record of all your bills, you get the extra benefit of having a running record of your monthly expenditures. This is helpful if you're on a tight budget and want to keep a close watch on your funds. If you do any contract or freelance work where you can deduct certain utilities and services as part of your home office setup, having a electronic record of all your paid bills comes in especially handy during tax-preparation season .


Tip: Online services like America Online and MSN offer bill-payment options, too.
UP TO SPEED
Bill Paying for the Bankless

Most people who've discovered the joys of electronic banking do their bill paying on the bank's Web site. But services like CheckFree can perform the same function. They're online services that don't require you to have an electronic bank account.

Bill-payment services can also eliminate the paper billing statements that fill up your mailbox each month; they can send you electronic bills that you manage, approve, and pay online.

CheckFree's bill-payment service lets you receive and pay e-bills online for free, as long as your payees are on its list of 300 common power and utility firms, department stores, and credit card companies; there's a list on the Web site (www.mycheckfree.com). Most other bill-paying services charge a small monthly fee.

"But how," you say, "can I pay the babysitter or anybody else not on that list?"

In that case, you have to sign up for the full Check-Free service, which involves a small fee unless your bank has a deal with CheckFree (Bank of America, SunTrust, and Wachovia do, for example). Once you sign up, you can pay people who aren't large corporations by having CheckFree print and mail a regular old-fashioned check to the party needing payment.





The Internet. The Missing Manual
iPhone: The Missing Manual, 4th Edition
ISBN: 1449393659
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 147
Authors: David Pogue

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