Internet banking is not only destined to transform the way we handle our money it already has.

A survey in August found that around two million people are now using the Net to buy financial services in Britain up 11 per cent on the previous six months.

And this despite more than half the people in a recent survey saying they did not have confidence in security of banking on-line.

Even a couple of highly publicised security breaches this summer, at Barclays and trendy competitors Egg.com, has failed to cool a market for on-line banking that can only be described as booming.

Barclays claim to have been the pioneers of on-line banking, having launched their Internet service two years ago.

And the firm that has been slated this year for closing 171 branches can take more than a little heart from the fact that they are raking in 4,000 on-line customers every day.

Even better news for the likes of Barclays is that the cost of providing a banking service on-line is reckoned to be, on average, only one tenth of the cost of keeping a dusty old branch open.

Cahoot launched their service this summer with a staff of just 56.

No wonder the banks are increasingly more likely to take the bank to you rather than wait for you to bring business to them.

While potential profits appear huge, however, the consumer stands to gain from an extremely competitive market.

The challenge for the big players in the game is hanging on to their existing customers. They know full well that the brand loyalty they have been able to count on in the past is disappearing.

"We are building a long-term partnership with customers," says Yasmin Choudhary of Barclays, adding: "Internet companies with wacky names do not faze us."

That is a reference to on-line banks like Egg, Cahoot and Smile, which are doing for banking what alcopops have done for the brewing business.

These are clearly aimed at the young computer literates who have money to spend, though they may not be aware that Egg, Cahoot and Smile are actually backed by Prudential, Abbey National and the Co-op respectively.

The face of banking is changing, and it looks like it is changing for the better.