There has been a sharp increase in the number of people who use online banking according to Apacs, the UK payments association.
This has led to calls for financial institutions and online retailers to ensure identity authentication measure are in place to prevent fraud .
The latest figures show that online banking has increased from 6.2 million in 2001 to over 17 million. Internet banking has also taken over from telephone banking because of the ease of dealing with finances from the home computer .
Sandra Quinn, director of communications at Apacs said, "While younger people continue to make up the majority of online banking users, the greatest proportion of new internet bankers are the over 55s.
"As a group they have come to embrace the ease and efficiency that online banking offers."
The phenomenon of online banking is mainly down to confidence in internet security adopted by banks such as identity authentication to prevent fraud.
However, studies show that organisations who fall foul of internet crime have not implemented adequate data protection measures, so losing customer confidence which is a heavy price to pay in the long run.






