Making a cyber-statement

nline banking has made Becky Moore's job a good deal easier.

Moore, a staff accountant at Southeast Missouri Hospital, uses the local Bank of America's online service daily, transferring funds, tracking finances or checking balances, all with a few key strokes and the click of a mouse.

"It's very easy," she said. "It saves time, you don't have all of the paperwork and you don't have those constant trips to the bank."

She likes it so much she does online banking at home, too.

It's an increasingly popular way online America is doing its books.

Online banking systems allow customers to plug into a host of banking services from a personal computer by connecting with the bank's computers. Not only is travel time reduced but ATMs, telephone banking or banking by mail are often unnecessary.

Also, the technology continues to make online banking, once attempted only by computer enthusiasts, easier for the average consumer. Consumers can use their computers and a telephone modem to dial in from home or any site where they have access to a computer.

The services are available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Transactions are executed and confirmed quickly, although not instantaneously. And the range of transactions available is fairly broad. Customers can do everything from simply checking on an account balance to applying for a mortgage.

Industry analysts predict that the number of Americans using online banking services on a regular basis will rise from 500,000 last year to 1.2 million in 2002 and rise to 2.6 million in 2003. By 2005, more than 7 million people are expected to be banking online.

'It's getting huge'

Though not all banks in the Cape Girardeau area offer online banking, many already do and they are reporting a growing interest.

"It's something that is a tremendous benefit," said Karen Green, the e-expert of the Cape Girardeau Firstar Bank -- which changes its name to U.S. Bank this week. "It's a time-saving device. It can make their lives so much simpler. It's getting huge."

Green said customers can view all of their bank accounts, reorder checks, pay bills, balance accounts, request copies of check, find out where ATM locations are, apply for loans and credit cards as well as get information about bank's branch locations.

Banks also love it because it saves them money, Green said. It cost banks an average of $1.25 per visit in labor and overhead costs. But a visit to the Internet only costs a bank 6 cents.

Plus, Internet customers generate 50 percent more revenue, hold 20 percent higher balances and are four times less likely to switch banks, Green said. They are also 48 percent more likely to have a mortgage, she said.

Reta Miller, the banking center manager for Bank of America's Mount Auburn branch, said it's taken off with their customers too.

"People just seem to be getting more confident in e-banking," Miller said. "It's so convenient and so many people are on computers already anyway. Why wouldn't they want to do their banking at home?"

Bank of America has more than 3 million people online, making it the largest online customer base in the world, Miller said. The Web site averages 9 million hits a month.

Can't pin down numbers

But it's hard to say how many online customers there are in Southeast Missouri.

"Nothing's local anymore," Miller said. "We have so many customers that are multi-state customers. They live in California and Missouri or Missouri and Arkansas. It'd be hard to say how many are logging on in Cape Girardeau."

Karen Grebing with the Cape Girardeau Union Planters Bank said they have seen a huge increase as well.

"The simple answer is easy: convenience," she said. "You can do it anytime, anywhere. It makes life easier, particularly for businesses which can handle funds and billing easier."

Union Planters has 80,000 households that use its online banking in 12 states from Florida, through Missouri and up to Iowa.

Michael Devaney, a professor of finance at Southeast Missouri State University, said he has studied the demographics of the typical online banker. He said, despite the growing popularity, it's still considered a fairly marginal part of retail banking.

The typical online banker is a white male in his 30s who makes $50,000 a year and uses a computer as part of his job.

"So it's confined to a narrow segment of the population," Devaney said. "But when people do use it, they express surprise that they didn't use it sooner."

Devaney said people -- other than the older segment of the population, most of whom will never get a computer -- won't have a problem switching to banking online because most people don't have an affinity for going to the bank.

But he said that people shouldn't expect Web banking to mean the end of the brick-and-mortar institutions.

"People still need safety deposit boxes, ATMs, and they like the idea of having someplace to go if there's some type of problem," he said.

smoyers@semissourian

335-6611, extension 137