Yes I do have to check it three times a day! (barclays.co.uk)

Member Name: Hannah0802

Product:	barclays.co.uk
Date:	19/05/09 (191 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple, instant, secure

Disadvantages: None

I have banked with Barclays since I was a little girl. Like any other bank these days they have their good points and many bad points but for this review I am just concentrating on their online banking service.

Like so many others on this site, you know who you are I am slightly obsessed with checking my bank accounts. It's not just a once a day thing it's a several times a day occurrence. I like to know to the penny how much I have in my account. Some may consider this sad but others on here will know why this is so important to me.

Before the days of online banking I would just spend until my card was rejected or the bank stopped giving me cash. Now as an older and wiser member of society I realise that this is not a good thing and I need to be much more organised with my money. So online banking for me in an absolute god send.

I have been using online banking for several years. The site is very simple to use in my opinion. When you become a member you are sent a 12 digit code which you use to sign in. Previously you set a password too and you were asked for random letters each time from the password in order to view your account however, now you use a Pinsentry device which now provides an added level of security.

The Pinsentry device looks like a small calculator. After you have input your 12 digit code you pop your debit card into the pinsentry device, press a button and the machine will ask for your PIN number, the same one you use at an ATM. Once you have popped this number in the machine provides you with an 8 digit random code which you input into the relevant boxes online and only once you have done this can you access your accounts.

The first page you come to is a summary of your accounts. Here it will list all your barclays accounts and show their current available balance. To the left of the screen you have all the different options available to you such as:

- make a payment
- change a payment
- set up a direct debit

One of the points I really like about this page is you can change the name of your accounts. They will automatically show the bank account number but you can give them a name too, so for instance one of mine is called "Bills Account". I find this really user friendly as I have several accounts and don't always remember the account numbers for some of them.

The current balance is always the available balance at that given time so this often includes items which won't yet show up on your account yet. For example you may have used your card a couple of hours earlier. The money will have shown as having left your account but when you check the actual account the details may not show.

Checking an individual account is simple. You just click on the relevant account and this takes you through to a statement of that account. It usually shows the last 7 days but you can change this to a different time frame if needed. I often look at a whole month at a time to check all my direct debits have gone out.

Using the online service you can cancel direct debits, set up new payments, transfer money between your accounts.

New transfers and payments have to be done again using your PIN sentry machine, again this is a very simple process of simply popping your card in and putting your PIN number in. Once you have done this process once the details are then saved and you no longer need to use the PIN sentry device and any further transfers and then done on the same day.

I honestly can't think of any downsides to this site. The PIN sentry device is a little bit of a pain but as someone who has had her card cloned twice I am grateful for any added security provided to protect my details and more importantly my money.

Summary: Keep a close eye on your money