Online banking or internet banking is a widely spread service nowadays. All banks have now their own websites, and users can conduct their financial transactions via this virtual bank. Comparing to traditional banks, virtual banks offer many services and applications which seem to have only advantages.

• Electronic billing, which allows the customer to transfer money from his/her account to a creditor, such as a public utility department, in order to pay monthly bills (electricity, gas, telephone invoices, leasing payments, etc). The transfer occurs via internet in real time, or in many cased the next working day at last. This feature seems to be a very comfortable solution, saving you time and nerves.
  
  
• Giro transfer: deriving from the Italian term, this service views the circulation of money. This is a method of payment, in which you give your bank regular payments or funds, to be transferred to somebody else’s account, or from your transactional account to your savings account. It is a fast, safe and cheap way to pay utility bills or taxes. It is also a common method of employers to transfer the wages to their workers.
  
  
• Business operations: buying or selling nowadays occur almost exclusively via electronic bank transfers, with the help of online banking
  
  
• Taking out and repaying loans: these occur through online transactions and transfer of money.
  
  
• E-statements: this feature means that you are regularly informed about the history of your financial transactions, through a virtual statement in your inbox.
  
  
• Accounting software: some virtual banks provide you this module, which is a good option if you have a business running, as this program records and processes all financial transactions. Managing data will considerably become easier with such programs.
  
  
• Account aggregation: this service helps you build your own database if you want to have a coherent picture of what is going on with your different accounts and you want to see the information compiled into a single spot.
  
  
• Non stop help desk: virtual banks offer free of charge, technical support by telephone, and they are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, anytime and anywhere there is an Internet connection. Some banks have interactive communication with clients through online messages and operators.
  
  
• Up to date information regarding the new services: information about the bank’s interest rates and foreign exchange rates, new services and promotions.

Those who use the Internet regularly for shopping and other forms of entertainment may be used to the fact that in most websites a single password authentication is enough to log in and start the transactions. However, due to the increased number of hackers, this is not enough for a secure online banking solution. In order to log in, you need to go through the stages of personal identification. This is usually done with the typing of a user name and token. The user name is always selected by the client and should contain a series of characters and/or numbers. The token is the number created by the banks security department. Whenever you access the online banking, you need to enter the token code that you receive when you sign the contract for online banking. Further on, any transaction has to be authorized in this way.

The most common type of hacker attack is called phishing. This means that hackers try to obtain information via email or instant messenger, regarding username, password, and credit card details by pretending to be representatives of your bank. There are a lot of countermeasures, like digital certificates, as well as implementing softwares based on signatures, bujt clients can also do very much about their own security: never open suspicious emails and attachments, and protect your PC with anti virus programs!