Halifax Bank of Scotland is reporting a 26% rise in online banking transactions in the past six months as the number of Internet registered users grows by 19% to 1.9m.
In its half-year report, HBOS also delivered an update on stand-alone Internet banking subsidiary Intelligent Finance, which posted a £21m reduction in losses to £38 million compared to the second half of 2002. The bank, which now commands a five per cent share of UK mortgage lending, has grown customer deposits by £500 million and opened 150,000 new accounts since December 2002.
With stability in costs and improving revenues, Intelligent Finance is on track to break-even by the end of 2003, says HBOS.
Other IT projects also remain on target, says the bank, with the task of creating a unified group IT infrastructure on course for completion by the end of the year. Branch amalgamation is almost finished, reports HBOS, and the decommissioning of legacy systems is expected to be substantially complete by the middle of next year.