We're Simply Banking On It
The Age
Thursday April 2, 1998
The public image of bankers is of conservative people in blue suits with expressions slightly colder than the iceberg that sank the Titanic. It might be your money but they hang on to it as if it were their own.
But banks are being hit by technology and, if it turns out as forecast, they'll never be the same again. Several banks are now on the Internet with interactive
services such as home banking. Advance Bank was one of the first, followed by the Commonwealth and, more recently, the National Australia Bank. Users, however, still tend to be a bit leery about exposing their hard-earned dollars to a medium where the hackers lurk under every digital rock.
But, hang on, the Internet is (if you'll pardon the Franglish) a network sans frontiers. If the Australian banks annoy you, what's to stop you opening an account in Germany, the UK or the US or, if you happen to be very well-heeled, Switzerland?
Without doubt, that is where we are heading with commercial transactions. It's now "normal" to buy books, CDs, software and clothing over the Internet. The world's biggest bookshop is Amazon.com (www.amazon.com), which has no retail stores and not even much of a warehouse, though they sell thousands of books a week.
In the US, and shortly in Australia, you may not only buy an Apple Macintosh on the Web, but you can configure it as you wish, changing hard drives, sound cards, video chips, floppy and Zip drives, internal modems and so forth. Delivery time for such a computer is about a week to 10 days in the US and, probably, Apple Australia will offer something similar.
Delivery is the key, which is why international couriers like Federal Express and DHL are attracting the attention of investors.
© 1998 The Age