The San Francisco-based Wells Fargo bank launched its first online service in 1990

The San Francisco-based Wells Fargo bank launched its first online service in 1990. Customers could check balances on their PC screens and transfer funds between accounts. In 1994 the bank set up a website and in May 1995, Wells Fargo was the first to offer banking via the Internet.In the UK in the early 1990s several banks experimented with their own intranet services. The oldest-established of these is still going strong - Bank of Scotland's Home and Office Banking System (HOBS). The first web-based banking service in the UK was Nationwide Building Society's Online Banking website, in May 1997. The first bank offering current account services over the Internet was Royal Bank of Scotland, hard on Nationwide's heels in June 1997.It is disingenuous of Smile, which launched in October 1999, to claim to be the first full service Internet bank. What Smile actually represents is the first purely Internet-based banking offshoot of an existing banking institution, the Co-operative Bank.US bank Citibank has 750,000 customers online around the world.

Barclays has the most active Internet accounts among UK institutions, with 400,000 customers online. Lloyds TSB has 100,000 customers online and ambitions to reach one million by the end of next year. Lloyds plans to launch a new Internet subsidiary, provisionally branded e-bank.PC banking via a bank's intranet requires customers to use extra software, either custom-provided by the bank or personal accounting programs such as Microsoft Money or Quicken. Online Internet banking does not require you to have extra software although many people do use programs like these to manage their money and most of the online banks will allow you to download your account data into the program or spreadsheet of your choice.When you apply for an online bank account you will receive a PIN (personal identification number). This will not be the same as the PIN you already have for use with ATMs You must also agree to the bank's terms and conditions These are governed by the Unfair Contract Terms Act of 1977. This means most of the liability for any fraud is placed on the bank.All banking services available to UK customers are supposed to work with PCs running Windows 95/98/NT.

But fewer function satisfactorily with Apple Macs running Mac OS8 or later. You will need to be using Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape Communicator/Navigator 4.0 or later versions. Among the banking services which proclaim their Mac compatibility are Lloyds TSB, the Co-operative Bank (but not Smile) and Citibank.The services available vary widely, several allow the option of viewing six months' statements but Lloyds TSB, for example, offers you only the current statement. Some banks allow you to schedule future payments out of your account and all have different rules on standing orders and direct debits.