Many Canadians can avoid visiting bank branches

If you’re like a majority of Canadians, you probably don’t go to a bank very often.

It’s not that people don’t need banks anymore; it’s because financial institutions have made it so easy to use their services without visiting a bank branch. The latest statistics from the Canadian Bankers Association (www.cba.ca/technology-andbanking) show that more than three-quarters of Canadians used online banking in the past year, while only 12 per cent preferred to do their business at a bank branch.

The statistics also reveal a shift in how people access online financial services. The association makes a distinction between internet and mobile access. As a result the number of people using the internet to do their banking has dropped to 51 per cent from 54 per cent, while 44 percent or respondents said that they had used a banking app on a mobile device during the past year.

The reasons usually given for using online banking are the convenience of paying bills, transferring funds, sending money by e-transfer, and using a smart phone to tap and pay. Another handy, highly-rated feature now offered by several banks is the ability to use a smartphone to deposit a cheque by taking a picture of it.

But there is much more you can do online. With personal financial software you can download a record of your banking transactions and simplify tedious tasks such as reconciling accounts and budgeting. At a glance you can see a record of all of the deposits, withdrawals, and payments for each account and the program will group expenditures and display everything in graphs and charts.

Quicken (www.quicken.com) is available for Windows and Mac computers and Apple and Android mobile devices, but the basic version is about $40 per year rather than a one time purchase. On the other hand, Ace Money Lite (www.mechcad.net) is a free version of the more robust retail version. It will only handle two accounts, sufficient for many people, and since it’s free you can try it without risk and see whether money management software works for you.

Microsoft discontinued its Money program in 2010 but you can download the "sunset" version of Money Plus Deluxe for free (https://tinyurl.com/ y9nrtalc). It's the complete program and I’ve used it for years without any problems. Although it will not connect directly to the internet, most Canadian banks will allow you to download your financial info from their online website and open it in Money.

Mint (www.mint.com/canada) is a free cloud financial tool. You don’t have to download anything and all of your financial data is kept at the Mint site where you can view it from any computer or mobile device and use the management tools to budget, categorize, and analyze your spending and deposits. Mint claims that its security is top-notch and funds cannot be transferred out of any account, but you'll need to register your account numbers and password at the Mint site.

Yet, despite all of the features of online banking, a serious concern expressed by users is security. The banks have tried to prevent unauthorized access to customer accounts by using multi-factor authentication. During the registration process you will be required to provide the answers to several security questions and anyone trying to log in from a different computer or device than you have authorized during the registration process will have to provide answers to one or more of the security questions.

While your anti-virus software will provide some protection, Canadian banks also offer a free security program called Rapport by Trusteer which will protect you from fake banking sites and hackers. You’ll find the download link at your online banking site or download it directly from Trusteer (www.trusteer.com/ProtectYourMoney).

One vital thing to remember is that no bank will ever send you an email asking you to follow a link and enter your personal information or account numbers. Delete all such emails as soon as they arrive..

Ray Saitz, a Peterborough resident and teacher, writes a regular column on the Internet. He can be reached at rayser3@cogeco.ca