Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!unmvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!millar.UUCP!bowles
From: bowles@millar.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Electronic Banking
Message-ID: <8905011336.AA23777@lll-crg.llnl.gov>
Date: 1 May 89 13:36:36 GMT
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Organization: The Internet
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	> However, I think electronic banking will make checks obsolete
	> in the near future.  Newspapers and magazines, likewise, are better online
	> than on paper--take Usenet as an example.
	
There have been variations of "electronic banking" for quite a while, now.
Most variations require a terminal/modem to connect to it, you log into
their time-sharing system, and do minimal things that include "send message
to officer asking for funds from checking account to be put into CD for
this long." (A fax machine is as useful, in that case.)

Chase Manhattan has a service in which you register and get a password,
then can dial up on any touch-tone phone to get into the system. All
commands are touch-tone (e.g. "*BAL#" and "*LST#" and so on) and you can
only issue checks to merchants whose names YOU have provided, on a paper
form YOU signed. This prevents someone using your password and issuing
a check to some company you don't know. (The worst thing that would happen
is that somebody would send all of your savings to the cable TV company
for YOUR account number.)

For most merchants, Chase still cuts a check and sends it to the merchant
by mail or messenger, but since there's all the information necessary, I
look for it to be all electronic in the future.

---

Then there's General Motors (GMAC), I believe, which offers a lower
percentage rate on car loans if you give them your bank code and account
number and let them take out your car payment electronically.

---

And banks send propoganda asking for employers to use "Direct Deposit"
because it'll save $0.25/paycheck/employee in overhead.

---

And so on.

---------------------

	>However, one must take the security issue into consideration. 
	>I think most people will feel reluctant to use electronic mail
	>for private and confidentail mail, as it is more vulnerable to
	>attacks by people wishing to intercept it.

More vulnerable to remote attacks. Most mailboxes where *I* grew up
didn't have locks.

Perhaps it's the felony-class criminal laws forbidding "tampering with
the mail" that keep people in their place?

	Jeff Bowles