Bank Holiday

A bank holiday is a public holiday in both the United Kingdom and Ireland. There is some automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population not employed in essential services (e.g. utilities, fire, ambulance, police, health-care workers, London Underground) receive them as holidays; those employed in essential services usually receive extra pay for working on these days. Bank holidays are often assumed to be so called because they are days upon which banks are shut, but this is not in fact the case. Some of the assumed bank holidays are days on which the banks are shut but are not, in fact, a bank holiday (e.g. Good Friday and Christmas Day). Legislation does not allow certain payments to be deferred to the working day.

Bank Robbery

Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is, "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear." By contrast, burglary is defined as, "unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft."Definitions vary in other countries, however. In the United Kingdom, robbery is the removal or taking away of property from a place in which you are entitled to be (without any requirement for force or violence to be threatened or used)[dubious – discuss], whilst burglary is largely in line with the US version, entering property unlawfully. In layman's terms, therefore, bank robbery is entering a bank when it is open and either by using force or the threat of force or otherwise obtaining valuables, usually money. Entering a bank when it is closed is burglary.

Bank robbery is a predominantly urban crime, taking place most frequently in cities and large towns. The share of bank robberies in small towns increased from about 20% in 1996 to about one third in 2002[citation needed], but the majority of bank robberies are concentrated in urban areas. This concentration is often attributed to there being more branches in urban areas, but the number of bank robberies is disproportionately higher than the number of branches. In Canada, for example, seven cities have 30 percent of all bank branches but 66 percent of all bank robberies; in the United Kingdom, London has 10 percent of the nation's branches but 39 percent of its bank robberies.

This has advantages both for bank robbers and for the law enforcement community. Being in urban areas the transportation infrastructure is more highly developed, especially where banks tend to cluster near to retail shopping areas and commercial districts. Such banks are highly profitable targets for bank robbers who are then afforded a number of potential escape routes. The law enforcement community benefit by being able to respond more quickly and the likelihood of catching a bank robber on or near the scene is higher than for other types of crime. This is because most bank robberies are reported very quickly, frequently while the crime is in progress, most bank robberies occur during daylight hours, have multiple witnesses and with modern technology often produce photographic images that can be distributed and used immediately to canvass the local area. Consequently, many robbers are caught the same day. In fact, the clearance rate for bank robbery is among the highest of all crimes, almost 60 percent.

The urban location of the crime also contributes to its repeat victimization profile, a measure of how quickly a crime victim will suffer a repeat of the original crime. One study carried out by the Home Office found that in England, one third of banks at which a robbery has occurred will be robbed again within three months, while the same study found that in Tallahassee, Florida, one quarter of robbed banks will suffer repeat robbery within a week, and over half of robbed banks will be robbed again within a month.

The Australian Institute of Criminology analyzed trends in bank robbery over a four year period. Of the 808 bank robbery incidents between January 1998 and May 2002 in which the number of offenders involved in the hold-up was recorded, more than half (55 percent) were committed by lone offenders, about 25 percent by pairs, and around 20 percent by three or more robbers. Unarmed lone offenders accounted for the majority of all robberies (28 percent of all robberies), caused the least number of injuries to victims (one percent of all victims' injuries), were the type of robber who most often used a note to threaten bank staff (46 percent of all their robberies), and failed most often in their robbery attempts (33 percent of their robberies). Unarmed gangs inflicted the most injuries to victims (51 percent of all victim injuries) and failed the least in their robbery attempts (six percent of their robberies). Armed robbers used a disguise more often compared to unarmed robbers, with armed pairs employing disguises most often (59 percent of their robberies).

A 2005 study by Pastore and Maguire found that injuries occur in about two percent of bank robberies in the US, and about six percent of robberies in Australia, and that a death occurs in approximately one third of all bank robberies.

Violent takeover type bank robberies do occur, but are very rare. The majority of bank robberies taking place today are so called "note jobs." These are usually accomplished by simply passing a written note to the teller demanding money. The idea is to attract as little attention as possible. In most cases, other customers present in the bank during such a robbery are completely unaware of what is occurring. Standard bank policy is to avoid violence as much as possible, so they will normally hand over the money and try to adhere to the robber's demands. The robber usually makes away with cash, but typically in relatively small amounts.

Bank Note

A banknote (often known as a bill, paper money or simply a note) is a kind of negotiable instrument, a promissory note made by a bank payable to the bearer on demand, used as money, and in many jurisdictions is legal tender. Along with coins, banknotes make up the cash or bearer forms of all modern money. With the exception of non-circulating high-value or precious metal commemorative issues, coins are used for lower valued monetary units, while banknotes are used for higher values. However some coins may have a significant value depending on the condition and worth.

Bank Engine

A bank engine (United Kingdom/Australia) (colloquially a banker) or helper engine or pusher engine (North America) is a railway locomotive that temporarily assists a train that requires additional power or traction to climb a grade (or bank). Helpers/bankers are most commonly found in mountain divisions (called "helper districts" in the U.S.), where the ruling grade may demand the use of substantially greater motive power than that required for other grades within the division.

History Of Online Banking

The precursor for the modern home online banking services were the distance banking services over electronic media from the early '80s. The term online became popular in the late '80s and referred to the use of a terminal, keyboard and TV (or monitor) to access the banking system using a phone line. ‘Home banking’ can also refer to the use of a numeric keypad to send tones down a phone line with instructions to the bank. Online services started in New York in 1981 when four of the city’s major banks (Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Chemical and Manufacturers Hanover) offered home banking services using the videotex system. Because of the commercial failure of videotex these banking services never became popular except in France where the use of videotex (Minitel) was subsidised by the telecom provider and the UK, where the Prestel system was used.

The UK’s first home online banking services was set up by the Nottingham Building Society (NBS) in 1983 ("History of the Nottingham". Retrieved 2007-12-14.). The system used was based on the UK's Prestel system and used a computer, such as the BBC Micro, or keyboard (Tandata Td1400) connected to the telephone system and television set. The system (known as 'Homelink') allowed on-line viewing of statements, bank transfers and bill payments. In order to make bank transfers and bill payments, a written instruction giving details of the intended recipient had to be sent to the NBS who set the details up on the Homelink system. Typical recipients were gas, electricity and telephone companies and accounts with other banks. Details of payments to be made were input into the NBS system by the account holder via Prestel. A cheque was then sent by NBS to the payee and an advice giving details of the payment was sent to the account holder. BACS was later used to transfer the payment directly.

Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first financial institution to offer online internet banking services to all of its members in Oct, 1994.

SMS Banking

SMS banking is a technology-enabled service offering from banks to its customers, permitting them to operate selected banking services over their mobile phones using SMS messaging.SMS banking services are operated using both push and pull messages. Push messages are those that the bank chooses to send out to a customer's mobile phone, without the customer initiating a request for the information. Typically push messages could be either Mobile marketing messages or messages alerting an event which happens in the customer's bank account, such as a large withdrawal of funds from the ATM or a large payment using the customer's credit card, etc. (see section below on Typical Push and Pull messages).

Another type of push message is One-time password (OTPs). OTPs are the latest tool used by financial and banking service providers in the fight against cyber fraud. Instead of relying on traditional memorized passwords, OTPs are requested by consumers each time they want to perform transactions using the online or mobile banking interface. When the request is received the password is sent to the consumer’s phone via SMS. The password is expired once it has been used or once its scheduled life-cycle has expired.

Pull messages are those that are initiated by the customer, using a mobile phone, for obtaining information or performing a transaction in the bank account. Examples of pull messages for information include an account balance enquiry, or requests for current information like currency exchange rates and deposit interest rates, as published and updated by the bank.

The bank’s customer is empowered with the capability to select the list of activities (or alerts) that he/she needs to be informed. This functionality to choose activities can be done either by integrating to the internet banking channel or through the bank’s customer service call centre.

History Of Normal Banking

The precursor for the modern home online banking services were the distance banking services over electronic media from the early '80s. The term online became popular in the late '80s and referred to the use of a terminal, keyboard and TV (or monitor) to access the banking system using a phone line. ‘Home banking’ can also refer to the use of a numeric keypad to send tones down a phone line with instructions to the bank. Online services started in New York in 1981 when four of the city’s major banks (Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Chemical and Manufacturers Hanover) offered home banking services using the videotex system. Because of the commercial failure of videotex these banking services never became popular except in France where the use of videotex (Minitel) was subsidised by the telecom provider and the UK, where the Prestel system was used.

The UK’s first home online banking services was set up by the Nottingham Building Society (NBS) in 1983 ("History of the Nottingham". Retrieved 2007-12-14.). The system used was based on the UK's Prestel system and used a computer, such as the BBC Micro, or keyboard (Tandata Td1400) connected to the telephone system and television set. The system (known as 'Homelink') allowed on-line viewing of statements, bank transfers and bill payments. In order to make bank transfers and bill payments, a written instruction giving details of the intended recipient had to be sent to the NBS who set the details up on the Homelink system. Typical recipients were gas, electricity and telephone companies and accounts with other banks. Details of payments to be made were input into the NBS system by the account holder via Prestel. A cheque was then sent by NBS to the payee and an advice giving details of the payment was sent to the account holder. BACS was later used to transfer the payment directly.

Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first financial institution to offer online internet banking services to all of its members in Oct, 1994.