On Selecting Internet Banks. Nowadays, with the growth and popularity of Internet technology, many banks that have physical offices also opened an online side of their business. Many Internet banks don’t even have physical offices and provide services only online. There are several different things to look for when selecting among many Internet banks. This article will point out the 4 main selection criteria. 1: Make sure that you confirm the bank’s insurance status. Your deposited money should be insured by the government. If a bank has this insurance, it will have an FDIC logo or something like "Member FDIC" or "FDIC Insured" written on the main page of the website. FDIC is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It safeguards the initial $100000 of deposits that are payable in the United States of America. Not all Internet banks are FDIC insured (the banks that are chartered overseas). UK, for example, has its own deposit guarantor for banks.
2: The next step is to do some type of verification of the bank’s deposit insurance status. Here we will show the example for a US bank. The similar process exists for banks in UK. For FDIC insured banks, including Internet banks, there is an FDIC’s online database. This database allows you to search though a list of FDIC organizations. You can specify such search criteria as the name, city and postal code of the bank. Make sure that the Internet banks that you are looking at are on that list. In addition to verifying that the bank is insured, you will also gain access to various other information about the bank (the official legal name, for example). 3: The next thing to check when you are looking at different Internet banks is their privacy policies. All banks, including Internet banks, are required to provide you with the copy of their privacy policy, whether on paper or in online form. You can find out more about the bank’s privacy policy before you actually sign up for one of the banks by going to the section of the website that is called something like “Privacy” or “Policies” or “Privacy Policy”. This policy will let you know how the bank will use your personal and financial information and how it will protect it. You should look for such things as the statement that this institution will not sell or give your information to anyone. Some bank’s may want to share your information but will give you an option to specifically prohibit or restrict this information sharing. 4: Find out what complaint mechanisms and customer service options are offered by various Internet banks. You can usually find this information in the “Customer Service” or “Help” sections of any bank’s website. This is very important since with Internet banks you don’t have an option of simply going to the bank’s branch and talking to the bank representative in person. Look for such types of support as the customer service email address, bank’s phone number and, in many cases, the online chat customer support. The more support mechanisms will be offered by the bank, the better. | 
