HSBC online trade up 55%

As online banking reaches its tenth anniversary, HSBC has reported a 55 per cent increase in its online business.

The trend towards online banking, started by Nationwide Building Society, now sees 18 million people using the web to access and manage their account and 1.8 billion visits to HSBC websites.

Chief executive Michael Geoghegan told the bank’s annual general meeting: "More and more of our personal and commercial customers are seeing the benefits of buying online. Our websites handled 1.8 billion visits last year and online sales increased by 55 per cent."

He added that the bank was moving towards using methods other than branches as ways of interacting with customers.

HSBC currently offers online customers the ability to manage savings accounts, loans, mortgages and credit cards.

The ease of dealing with customers directly instead of through banks has seen some offer special online deals. Birmingham Midshires has just launched an online savings account which pays out 6.05 per cent, though no interest will be paid in any month in which withdrawals are made.