YOU CAN BET ON IT

"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention--invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble."   --Agatha Christie

My guess says that the cave man who invented the first bucket was lazy. Instead of climbing up and down the cliff from his cave to the stream in the valley and back again every time he felt thirsty, the bucket let him enjoy the very first luxury of laziness.

The “lazy” label has been attached to practically everyone who's enjoyed a new energy saving invention. My grandmother was convinced that the new gas cooker my grandfather bought for her would make her lazy.

Every time I asked my father if I could use the family car, he reminded me that walking was good for me. My parents were also absolutely certain that television and then computers would make everyone lazy and unable to use their minds.

They tended to overlook the fact that their electric lawnmower and winter snow blower saved them a lot of energy during both grass-cutting season and when the winter snows fell where they lived.

Now, with the Internet and the World Wide Web, many people have been enjoying the luxury of online banking. Does banking online make someone lazy? You can bet on it. That is if you consider it laziness to save time and energy that you might enjoy using for something else.

When you think about it, these conveniences don't really make us lazy. They simply free us to do other things with the time and energy saved by a new invention. Going to the bank doesn't happen to fit into the category of pleasurable experiences, unless you’re depositing lottery winnings.

When you have normal deposits or withdrawals to make, you have to dress especially for the outing or take time from your work to make it to the bank during the hours when they're open. You have to fight traffic, find parking, fill up the forms, sign cheques, wait in line to get at the counter and be nice to the cashier. All of that plus wasting petrol and putting up with crazy drivers getting to your bank's branch and back.

With online banking we can take care of our banking needs from our home computers at any time that's convenient 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Many online banking accounts will even pay some of your bills automatically.

Before starting to bank online, however, you need to decide which is the best bank to do business with if your own bank doesn't offer an online banking service. 

Bank Pulse lists "Best Rated Banks" and provides a "Bank Directory" of online banks throughout the world. According to Bank Pulse, who lists banks by country: 

"Online banking is most widespread in the United States, but many international and foreign banks have also begun to offer online banking services. Canada has over a dozen banks offering these services. Worldwide, 60 countries have one or more domestic online banks."

A list including links to Internet banks is available at DMOZ, the Open Directory project, with descriptions of the sites for Internet Banking at banks only on the Internet.  Another DMOZ site also lists banks, with descriptions, for Online Banking. These banks operate in physical facilities offline as well as online.

For a list of international banks, with comments about each and the online services they provide, see the "ukbanksguide".

A number of popular individual online banking facilities, available internationally, provide reliable and secure service worthy of consideration. The following by no means exhausts the list of available banks. 

Barclays International Banking has a demo and guided tour on its site.  ANZ (Australia/New Zealand) offers Everyday Accounts and savings online.
Griffon Bank, an offshore facility located in Dominica, provides international online services. 

In addition to banking online, it's also possible to invest in securities on the Internet. Things like stocks and bonds can be bought and sold online. Whether you invest directly with a broker or online, it's important to learn about the risks involved.

The purpose of The Wall Street Transcript (TWST) is to help investors make better investment decisions when choosing stocks and sectors. 

The questions you may have are probably like those asked by many others. Investment FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) provides answers in 22 different categories as well as a place for entering your own question.

Investopedia offers investors tutorials, articles about investing and a dictionary of financial terms. Insert virtually any word, and Investopedia will define it and use it in a business reference.

The next thing you need is a source of timely business and financial information.

With up-to-date market data, financial news and commentary, charts and analysis, Bloomberg offers the most comprehensive source of financial information. The information provided by Bloomberg on the Internet, just like that provided to investment firms around the world, is up-to-date and reliable.

Bloomberg has 8000 employees providing financial information and services 24 hours a day, seven days a week based on their professional services to 260,000 professionals in 125 countries. Brokers and bankers around the world subscribe to the service.

Business Wire has, for some time, provided journalists and investors with full-text news announcements from thousands of companies and organizations worldwide.

MSN Money Central has become a popular site for people seeking information about investing, banking and loans, financial planning and current market news.

Morningstar.com is a global investment research firm providing a number of "Investing Centers" for information and advice as well as a half dozen electronic newsletters that you can subscribe to.

Smart Money, like several of the other sites already mentioned, lets you create your own portfolio and track it; and if you do that with stocks that you haven't bought, you can get an idea about how successful you might be as an investor with real money.

If you really do become an investor, you'll want to know about financial news sources. In addition to Bloomberg, mentioned above, investors have found the following online news sources reliable. It's a good idea to browse through all of them and then select one or several that suit you best.

CNN and Money Magazine combine international market and stock reports, company news and commentary.

At Reuters click on "Finance" near the top left corner of the page for the latest business stories.

The Wall Street Journal Online has politics fit only for rabid American Republicans but dispenses a fairly reliable source of financial information.

Yahoo Business provides a popular source of information about what’s going on in financial markets worldwide.

In addition to its American News, USA Today has international business guides.

Business Week Online has been a regular competitor among financial news publications for a long time and continues to be popular among investors. 

The Economist, a well-organized UK site, has a world reach of information and readers. If you want to combine reasonably objective world news with financial reporting, this is the place to visit.

Numerous business people and investors from the UK swear by the Financial Times. Online, it provides much of the information you’ll find on the other financial news sources with more about UK markets.

If you're like me, you have better things to do with your time than dressing up and fighting your way through traffic to get to your bank or securities broker. When it comes to the routine business of handling checking accounts, savings and investments, it makes sense to be lazy.

Business executive Mark Kennedy wrote, "All of the biggest technological inventions created by man--the airplane, the automobile, the computer--say little about his intelligence, but speak volumes about his laziness." Perhaps the computer and online banking and investing say more about human intelligence than Kennedy appreciates. I’d say you can bet on it.