Annals of the University of Petroşani, Economics, 9(3), 2009, 239-248 239 ASPECTS REGARDING INTERNET BANKING SERVICES IN ROMANIA IMOLA DRIGĂ, DORINA NIŢĂ, CODRUŢA DURA * ABSTRACT: Banks have traditionally been interested in using technology to improve their products, services and efficiency. Over a long time they have been using electronic and telecommunication networks for delivering a wide range of value added products and services. With its increasing popularity, Internet is more and more used by banks as a channel for providing their products and services to their customers. This form of banking is generally referred to as Internet banking. The paper examines the features of Internet banking focusing on the substantial growth over the last years as banks use Internet services as an aggressive business strategy to gain market share rather than for making profits. KEY WORDS: financial institutions, E-banking, Internet banking 1. INTRODUCTION Apart from the traditional type of banking services, customers today require more personalised products and services and able to access such services at any time and at any place. Electronic banking is defined as the automated delivery of new and traditional banking products and services directly to customers through electronic, interactive communication channels. E-banking includes the systems that enable financial institution customers, individuals or businesses, to access accounts, transact business, or obtain information on financial products and services through a public or private network, including the Internet. E-Banking is also called Internet banking, online banking. E-Banking may include ATMs, wire transfers, telephone banking, electronic funds transfers and debit cards. Nowadays, internet banking sites process customer service inquiries, allow transactions from one account to another, take loan applications, open new accounts. Internet banking (or online banking) is a banking service that allows customers to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by their bank. Internet * Lecturer, Ph.D., University of Petroşani, Romania, [email protected] Lecturer, Ph.D., University of Petroşani, Romania, [email protected] Assoc.Prof., Ph.D., University of Petroşani, Romania, [email protected] 240 Drigă, I.; Niţă, D.; Dura, C. banking basically allows customers to be able to do everything that they can do in your regular banking institution, only with the benefit of doing it from the convenience of their own home. Internet banking offers an array of different advantages to the user, including: account balances and history including year-to-date information, the ability to transfer money from one account to another and to payees for bill payments, check history, reorders, and stop payments, check credit card balances and statements, complete online loan applications, secure interactive messaging with staff, and much more. Financial institution Internet offerings can be broadly classified into three groups with distinct risk profiles: • informational - offers information about the bank's products and services ("brochureware") and is low risk; • communicative - offers account-related information and possibly offers updates to static data (such as addresses). Since access is permitted to the bank's main systems, the risk is material; • transactional - allows customers to execute financial transactions and carries the highest risk. Some transactional models carry higher risks, for example, if the customer has never visited a branch throughout his entire relationship and prefers to carry out all his transactions remotely (this commonly happens with some online share trading sites). Some of the distinctive features of Internet banking are: • it removes the traditional geographical barriers as it could reach out to customers of different countries; • it has added a new dimension to different kinds of risks traditionally associated with banking; • security of banking transactions, validity of electronic contract, customers’ privacy have assumed different dimensions given that Internet is a public domain, not subject to control by any single authority or group of users; • it poses a strategic risk of loss of business to those banks who do not respond in time to this new technology. Over the last few decades information technologies had affected the banking industry highly and have provided a way for the banks to differentiate their products and services. The precursor for the modern home online banking services were the distance banking services over electronic media from the early '80s. The term online became popular in the late '80s and referred to the use of a terminal to access the banking system using a phone line. In today's world, computers play an incredibly large role in the way the world exists in general, and the majority of tasks could actually not be completed if not for the use of computers. The history of Internet banking obviously begins with the history of the Internet. Although the term Internet was first adopted around the year 1974, it wasn't until the 1990s that the Internet became a really universal adoption. The Internet grew incredibly throughout the 90s, and as it continued to grow. Internet banking has been around for quite a few years now, but has really only become prominent over the past year or so in particular. Online banking services started in New York in 1981 when four of the city’s major banks (Citibank, Chase Aspects Regarding Internet Banking Services in Romania 241 Manhattan, Chemical and Manufacturers Hanover) offered home banking services using the videotex system. The UK’s first home online banking services were set up by the Nottingham Building Society in 1983. The system used was based on the UK's Prestel system and allowed on-line viewing of statements, bank transfers and bill payments. In order to make bank transfers and bill payments, a written instruction giving details of the intended recipient had to be sent to the NBS who set the details up on the Homelink system. The first financial institution to offer online Internet banking services to all of its members was the Stanford Federal Credit Union that provided this type of service from October 1994. 2. INTERNET BANKING AROUND THE WORLD Europeans use online banking to quite different degrees. Adoption rates decrease from north to south and rich to poor. Most companies in Europe use the internet for banking and financial services (e-finance). 72% of enterprises across the EU-27 manage part or all of their financial tasks online. However, the differences are remarkable (figure 2). 93% of firms in Iceland are users of online finance, whereas only 30% of Romanian companies use that service. Source: Eurostat, 2007 Figure 1. % of enterprises who use the internet for banking and financial services, 2006 Banking over the internet is most widespread among medium-sized firms. The fact that fewer large firms than medium-sized firms use the internet for financial services may be surprising, but many large companies employ legacy systems which do not need the internet (figure 2). 242 Drigă, I.; Niţă, D.; Dura, C. Northern Europeans are the most enthusiastic online bankers. Adoption rates increase from south to north and poor to rich. More than 70% of all Icelanders use the internet to access banking services but only 2% of the Bulgarians do. In some Northern European countries, more than 60% of the population use online banking. Apparently, online banking has attracted users from outside the early core group. In Iceland, for instance, the adoption rate of highly educated people is 90%, while that of medium educated people has reached 76%. This implies an education gap of 14 pp or merely 20% of the average adoption rate in Iceland. In Bulgaria, this is still 300%. At some point in development, adoption rates among the laggards will catch up with those of the early users (figure 3). Source: Eurostat, 2007 Figure 2. % of enterprises in the EU-25 who use the internet for banking and financial services, 2006 Source: Eurostat, 2008 Figure 3. % of individuals, who have used online banking, 2008 Aspects Regarding Internet Banking Services in Romania 243 In the EU 27, 60% of households1 had access to the internet during the first quarter of 2008, compared with 54% during the first quarter of 2007, and 48% had a broadband internet connection, compared with 42% in 2007. Household internet access ranges from 25% in Bulgaria to 86% in the Netherlands. In 2008, the proportion of households with internet access was three quarters or more in the Netherlands (86%), Sweden (84%), Denmark (82%), Luxembourg (80%) and Germany (75%). The lowest levels were registered in Bulgaria (25%), Romania (30%) and Greece (31%). In the EU 27, nearly a third of all individuals had used internet for travel and accommodation services and around 30% had used internet banking (table 1). Table 1. Internet access and internet banking in the EU 27 in 2008 (%) Internet access Internet banking EU 27 60 29 Belgium * * Bulgaria 25 1 Czech Republic 46 14 Denmark 82 61 Germany 75 38 Estonia 58 55 Ireland 63 28 Greece 31 5 Spain 51 20 France 62 40 Italy 42 13 Cyprus 43 11 Latvia 53 39 Lithuania 51 27 Luxembourg 80 48 Hungary 48 13 Malta 59 25 Netherlands 86 69 Austria 69 34 Poland 48 17 Portugal 46 14 Romania 30 2 Slovenia 59 21 Slovakia 58 24 Finland 72 72 Sweden 84 65 United Kingdom 71 38 Note: * Data not available, Source: Eurostat, 2008 An ever increasing number of Europeans access banking services over the internet. Between