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Article

Abstract

The Internet has invaded almost every aspect of society. Culture, leisure, sports, learning, and of course, economy and finance. Analyzing banking industry gives us some light on this respect; according to [7], almost no banker believed as far as 1995 on the Internet as an alternative way for delivering financial services. But at the end of the first semester of 1998, 6.3% of US national banks was offering transactional services through the web, a figure that increased to a 20% in just nine months, according to [12]. In 15 months the offering was increasing at an amazing rate of 188.2%. The Spanish banking system, with the logical gap, is evolving in the same way, as we will later see. At the present time, all the big Spanish banks and the majority of the mid sized are offering transactional Internet services; virtual banks hold a share of 1.2% of the Spanish banking industry as by December 31, 2000, with a volume of deposits over Euro 3 billions, according to the Spanish Banking Association.

The structure of the present communication is as follows. I will first sum up the evolution of e-banking in the USA, showing the main features of the business. Then I will go on with the characteristics of the business in Spain, with some references to the European market. Finally I will explain what is thought to be the main challenges for the final development of the transactional web services.

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