How to select a Bank?

The most financial decision is selecting a bank to manage your funds. Different banks offer various services, fees, and Savings Account interest rates.

Types of Banks

The banks ideal for you is the essential factor to consider. Every bank has its set of pros and cons.

Traditional banks

When people think of a bank, they think of the traditional ones, who primarily provide facilities to their customers through a network of physical locations and supply ATMs to their and other banks' customers. Most are considering Online Banking services for bill payments and deposits. Even though traditional banks have been around the longest, fewer reasons to pick them over competitors. Both charge lower fees than typical banks.

However, choose to conduct your financial transactions personally. If you have a query or a problem, speak to someone about it in your local branch. This indicates that a traditional bank is the best option for you. However, it is best to check the alternative options accessible to you.

Online banks

These were uncommon 20 years ago, but their popularity has grown with time, and they now compete directly with traditional ones. Because internet banks have fewer or no physical branches, they have lower overhead costs than standard ones, which means their fees are often lower. These banks offer to have a banking app that lets you make banking transactions.

The difference between online and traditional banks has increasingly blurred in recent years, as the latter's digital services and technologies have evolved. This implies that you can get the benefits of a traditional branch while also taking advantage of the convenience of Internet Banking.

Fees and interest rates

The fees and rates charged are other aspects to examine when deciding where to bank. Most hold two types of accounts: a Checking and a Saving Account. The features vary depending on the type of account you open, and it is common to have various accounts with multiple banks.

Interest rates

Look for a unique set of features in your Savings Account. As you do not use the Saving Bank Account often, you can handle them online. Most of them do not charge excessive fees if you do not make frequent withdrawals. Instead, the fundamental distinction between these accounts is the interests they pay. The best rates are found through credit unions or internet banks. Shop around for the best interest rates.

Protocols To Keep In Mind To Ensure Safe Online Banking

With the Indian e-commerce space expanding due to constant spree of acquisitions, more and more Indian customers are moving away from traditional way of shopping at stores to shopping online. This, along with demonetisation has led to a swift rise in the number of digital mode of payments in recent years. These include numerous forms of payments, such as net banking, debit/credit cards, mobile wallets, UPI, etc. This also calls for an increasing requirement of recognising on how to safeguard online payments.

While technology has made it simple for us to manage our daily expenses, every great innovation has drawbacks too. This wave of digital payments has also opened doors to risks of cyber theft as new users, and the less tech-savvy do not take all the adequate safety measures while using internet banking.

Lot of us tend to save personal financial information on various digital payment platforms for quicker payments. While it does make our lives easier, it also causes a severe security threat.

While doing transactions online, we are subject to various risks of scams such as – loss of money and financial data, phishing scams and identity theft. Since most of us now use net banking to make online payments, one must take safety measures to protect money, both offline and online.

Here are few rules to follow to ensure safety while indulging in financial transactions on the internet:

Secure website

Anybody can go through your letters from the mailbox outside your house. Similarly, anybody can sniff around your internet connection too, if logged into an unsecured website. And if someone scrutinises your connection for a long time, they can gain access to any data that you send and receive or have stored on that site.

For preventing this violation of security, most social networks, email services, etc. use a safe and secure protocol, called HTTPS. This security protocol is known as Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol over Transport Layer Security or HTTPS.  It means end-to-end encryption of any data that’s exchanged between website servers and you.

The easiest way to identify if the website is safe is to look for a green padlock icon in the left corner of the address bar. Also, look if it is “HTTPS” at the beginning of the URL in the address bar and not “HTTP”.

Dedicated email address

If you are a regular online shopper, it is ideal to create a separate email address just for online shopping. Keep this email account clean and uncluttered. This way if you receive any unsecure email, on your main ID, with dubious promotion offers, you can spot them right away.

Payment alert messages

In case, you do not have the SMS alerts facility active, we advise you should get it as soon as possible. The SMS alert facility will inform you of any bank account activity. Hence if any transaction does not get initiated, report to the bank immediately and cancel all your cards. If informed on time, your money is safe, and the bank will compensate you for losses, if any, as per RBI guidelines.

Avoid public computers and Wi-Fi

Never do any online banking transactions on a public computer such as the ones in cybercafé. Also, never use public Wi-Fi for financial transactions as they are unsecured networks. Anyone can join the network as there is no key or password to access it. Such networks can easily fall prey to hackers who can steal your details.

Remember these protocols while using your mobile banking apps as well.

5 Reasons Why Online Banking Is Important Today

Online banking has become a common phenomenon. You can check your account regularly, pay bills on time, transfer funds with ease, open an account and much more. Almost every bank offers the facility. It has become easier and convenient to manage our finances. You can also get your queries answered online as banks have a unique system for the same. Precisely why the banking industry is soaring to new heights every day.

Some reasons why online banking is on the rise today are: 

• Protection: One of the preconceived notions regarding internet banking is security. We tend to conduct online transactions with the help of a data, be it at home or away. And sometimes in public places as well. So, the public WiFi can assist the fraudsters to lift your banking details easily. In order to do away with such mishaps, banks have incorporated certain safety measures in place such as the one-time password. It helps the websites to identify the user. 

• Accessibility: One of the major reasons why people are heavily relying on banking online is because of its easy access. Be it home or work or travel, you can bank at your fingertips. You need a stable data connection, and you can enjoy all sorts of banking services. Also, users need not stay in front of their computers to conduct any transaction. Thanks to mobile banking apps, you can bank anywhere and everywhere. 

• Hidden charges: The best part about banking online is that it is free of cost. You only require a bank account and customer ID and password for internet banking. You can move funds from one account to the other without paying any penalty. However, SMS alerts do incur a small fee. You can neglect the same as the bank notifies you via e-mail. 

• Convenience: Online banking is highly convenient. You can eliminate long standing Moreover, there is a mobile banking option offered by almost every bank nowadays. You can check your balance on the go before making any last-minute purchase. 

• Monitoring account: You also have the benefit of checking multiple accounts. You can access real-time expenses which enable you to arrive at an estimated monthly budget. In fact, tracking your account on a frequent basis will deny any misdealing as banks cannot look after every account manually.

With so many benefits at the offing, it is difficult to opt out of the online banking facility. Make way for smoother transactions!