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Banking took another step into the future this week when Egg and Lloyds TSB launched separate services allowing people to make completely online payments to anyone with a UK bank or building society account.
Egg's service is arguably the more whizzy as it allows people to send money (between £1 and £200) via email. While the sender has to be an Egg customer, the recipient doesn't - all they need to do is click on the email, answer a security question and then key in details of the account they want the money paid into.
The Lloyds TSB facility allows customers to make regular as well as one-off online payments via its www.lloydstsb.com website. To do this, you need the recipient's account number and sort code.
These two follow other recent online banking innovations such as the Webcard, a piece of software which allows customers of Abbey National's Cahoot to buy goods online without having to disclose their card number to the retailer.
But only time will tell whether these are revolutionary tools that spell the future of banking or simply five-minute wonders. They come at a time of contradictory reports as to the buoyancy or otherwise of online banking.
Some 7.8m current account-holders in the UK were banking online in December 2001, well over double the 3.5m figure of 18 months earlier, according to pollsters NOP World. And Barclays has seen an almost six-fold increase in the number of online banking users in little more than two years, from 500,000 at the start of 2000 to more than 2.8m now.
But look closely at some of the effusive surveys and you'll find other facts and figures that could give cause for concern. According to Barclays's latest quarterly "internet index," 37% of internet users bank online - but while up on three months ago, this is down on last summer when the figure was 39%.
A rival survey from Mori and Egg found that while 45% of the population - 20m people - now use the internet for personal use, only a further one in 10 envisage accessing it within the next two years. This suggests many millions of people are, and intend to remain, stubbornly resistant to the charms of online banking.
Egg, probably the best-known of the stand-alone internet banks, this week revealed that it now has 2.1m customers. But it is surprising to see that within this total the number of savings account customers is unchanged on a year ago. On March 31 this year it had 627,555 savers compared with 627,714 at the end of March 2001.
So what may be holding the online banks back? Banks say that contrary to what some might expect, confusion about the multitude of different internet access packages and the rising cost of many of these (see pages 2-3) is not proving a hindrance. Most people who use the internet will not stop using it because their internet service provider has increased its prices, says Chris Gillies at Zurich Bank, Britain's newest online bank which launched three months ago.
The notorious apathy that exists when it comes to moving your current account is clearly a major factor in the arguably slower-than-expected growth of online banking.
On the other hand, while worries about security are still an issue for some, it's clear that confidence in the net is growing as many more people dip their toe in the water.
Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests a fair number of people are using their internet account as a second account and keeping their high street bank account as their main one.
A spokesman for Smile con cedes that for many, moving over lock, stock and barrel is "a big step". Initially, a lot of people don't close their existing account when they set up an online one, but others "go straight in," he adds.
What isn't in doubt is that provided you are comfortable placing your money with an internet bank, there are some good deals out there.
Cahoot (www.cahoot.co.uk) is paying 3.93%-4.03% gross per annum on its current account, ahead of Zurich Bank (www.zurichbank.co.uk), which offers 3.45%, but Zurich Bank is promising to track the Bank of England base rate for life. Intelligent Finance (www.if.com) and the Co-op Bank's Smile (www.smile.co.uk) pay current account-holders 3.15% and 3% respectively, while First Direct (www.firstdirect.com) is offering 2%.
On the savings account front, Egg tops the table, with an internet-only account paying 5% gross per annum guaranteed for six months, then guaranteed to match the Bank of England base rate (currently 4%) until the end of 2007.
Meanwhile, Intelligent Finance is paying 4.01%, Zurich Bank 3.5%, Smile 3% and First Direct 2%-plus, according to financial data provider Moneyfacts.
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