Access to bank statements without full online banking?

praxisizer

I'd rather not enable online banking for things like paying bills / setting up standing orders, because I don't want to make it any easier to steal money from me. On the other hand, I'd definitely like online access to statements so I can more easily keep track of my spending. That would be a good thing, because I don't have any accounting system at the moment, except in the form of my "piling system"

So does anybody know of a bank that offers just online access to statements, without all the other online banking services? Or at least without most of them?

Thanks all

onlypaddy

you can sign up, but dont have to pay bills online if you dont want to

praxisizer

onlypaddy wrote: »

you can sign up, but dont have to pay bills online if you dont want to

But if something doesn't work right, somebody else could pay bills online That's what I'd like to avoid: increased risk of theft. So signing up but not using it would defeat the point.

Old_Wrinkly

Am I missing something?
I assume that OP has a current account.
If so, then all sorts of unhappy things could happen on that account at the moment, whether it is online or not.
I assume that OP withdraws money from said account from time to time. Most of us use ATMs for that (particularly when faced with the queues in branches ).
Can't OP simply get mini-statements from his/her ATM (or in fact most LINK ones)?

praxisizer

Old_Wrinkly wrote: »

Am I missing something?
I assume that OP has a current account.
If so, then all sorts of unhappy things could happen on that account at the moment, whether it is online or not.
I assume that OP withdraws money from said account from time to time. Most of us use ATMs for that (particularly when faced with the queues in branches ).
Can't OP simply get mini-statements from his ATM (or in fact most LINK ones)?

I have a current account. As you say, all sorts of bad things could happen. I just don't want to add to that list of bad things. I'm a computer programmer, I guess that tells you the reason I think that way

I get paper statements already. What I'd like is machine-readable statements, so that I can import them automatically into a computer program (GnuCash) that will help me track my expenditure. I'd like to do that without enabling other internet banking services on my bank account.

heloid

There is no 'read only' internet banking service unfortunately.

pmduk

Old_Wrinkly wrote: »

Can't OP simply get mini-statements from his/her ATM (or in fact most LINK ones)?

In my experience you can only get a mini-statement from those ATMs operated by your own financial institution.

Old_Wrinkly

pmduk wrote: »

In my experience you can only get a mini-statement from those ATMs operated by your own financial institution.

Yes, you're probably right. I've had mini-statements for a Halifax account from a Bank of Scotland ATM (unsurprisingly ) and a Sainsburys Bank one, but I can't be sure now of any others.

rb10

Old_Wrinkly wrote: »

Yes, you're probably right. I've had mini-statements for a Halifax account from a Bank of Scotland ATM (unsurprisingly ) and a Sainsburys Bank one, but I can't be sure now of any others.

Halifax run the Sainsbury's ATMs, so that'll be why you've got them from there.

System

heloid wrote: »

There is no 'read only' internet banking service unfortunately.

Nationwide / RBS / Natwest and probably others will let you login and look over details but need the card reader to make payments.

Just don't request a card reader and no payments can be made.

This would be the closest that I can think of.

praxisizer

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Nationwide / RBS / Natwest and probably others will let you login and look over details but need the card reader to make payments.

Just don't request a card reader and no payments can be made.

This would be the closest that I can think of.

Thanks, that's useful information.

Here's one rather extreme risk from using that kind of service in the way you suggest (note that this risk is not present in the same way if you don't sign up for internet banking, but is present even if you don't own a card reader). I will certainly ignore this risk, because it's so unlikely to happen to me, but doesn't it fill you with confidence in the banks' security efforts? This is a vulnerability that the banks could have prevented with a simple technical fix -- google search for "optimised to fail blue" (without the quotes) for details and the links for citations [6] and [7] below (I'm not allowed to post links because I'm a new user).

In July 2008 two French students were tortured to death in their London residence six days after it was broken into and a computer stolen. Days after the murders the police revealed that the attackers were after the students’ card PINs [6]. In February 2007, two Manchester men murdered a 62 year old security guard after he refused to reveal his card’s PIN [7].