Beating the big boys This nimbleness enabled companies that offer banking services over the Internet to gain a foothold early on as a source of merchant accounts for dot-com businesses that needed a facility for processing credit card transactions on their Web sites. Many big banks were slow to offer such services because of concerns that not knowing who was on the other end of a transaction was a ripe opportunity for fraud. Mass. As a result, online banks are making deals to bundle their services in with electronic marketplaces and portals to offer users of those sites support for online transactions. Such relationships are springing up more regularly. Like some of its brethren, OneCore is technically not a bank, but it offers the services in conjunction with a variety of partners.
Timing is everything Making decisions at Internet speed is crucial to online businesses.
When founder Robin Miller was approached by OneCore, he signed up quickly. Another online bank is taking a slightly different approach to wooing tech-savvy customers. But being startups themselves can also hurt online banks. However, the company chose to partner with Rabobank International, a large, established bank based in Utrecht, Netherlands, because of its size and track record, according to Tor Boswick, vice president of Foodtrader. In addition, all online banks still face the problem of a lack of branches and ATMs.