More than a third of British adults now use the internet to manage their finances, it has been claimed.
Nationwide says 37 per cent of UK adults now have online bank accounts, ten years after it launched the first-ever internet banking facility in the UK.
On May 27th 1997 13,000 people registered for the building society's new account, with the group saying this number had now risen to there million.
But despite this apparent increase in popularity, almost a quarter of people who do not have online bank accounts say they prefer to deal with people face-to-face or via the telephone.
And Nationwide's own research shows that 69 per cent of people who do not use the internet to manage their finances do so out of safety fears.
Nevertheless, the firm's divisional director Mik Hodgson still expects online banking to continue to grow over the next decade.
"Internet banking has continued to be developed and enhanced over the last ten years and there is no doubt that it will attract more and more users," he said.
"It will be interesting to see the advances that technology will bring over the next ten years."