ON-LINE banking is to be offered from March to Bank of Ireland customers who are on the Web.

The bank is set to become one of the first European banks to offer such a service to its customers, though many other banks are expected to follow over the coming 12 months.

Account holders who are on the Internet will be able to get up to the minute information about their account balances, order statements and chequebooks, and pay their energy, telephone and credit card bills through the service. They will also be able to make comments.

Customers will be able to use the service from anywhere in the world at any time in the day or night. They will not need to know their account numbers, just a personal identification number and a "password".

The bank envisages the service developing so that customers will eventually be able to open accounts, transfer funds between accounts, alter standing orders and seek loans and mortgages on the Web.

A three month pilot run using a selected panel of computer literate customers is currently under way and will be used to test the system and make final adjustments.

Irish Internet service providers have about 36,000 subscribers and the number of Irish people worldwide with access to the World Wide Web is estimated to be 120,000.

About 40 per cent of these would be Bank of Ireland customers, according to the bank.

The rate of increase in the numbers on the Web in Ireland is one the fastest in Europe. Mr Alan Shanley, the Bank of Ireland group Internet programme manager, said the bank was making no projections as to how many people might use the new service.

In the US, banks which set up similar services underestimated demand by a factor of three. "We are hoping to be pleasantly surprised".

The standard bank charges will apply for services used through the system. An additional fee for having access to the service has not yet been decided on.

"We are going to research what value customers put on the service," Mr Shanley said. "Any charge will be subject to the approval of the Director of Consumer Affairs."

In the US, account holders with access to the system are charged between £2.80 and £3.75 per month.

Customers who wish to use the service will be provided with a 6 digit PIN and an 8-digit "password" which will be a second series of numbers.

Security is a major factor and the bank is anxious to ensure that customers feel confident their accounts, or information about their accounts, cannot be accessed by others using the service.

Information will be encrypted while travelling on line, and the passwords and PIN numbers will be held in encrypted form in the bank database.

The customer's full account number or home address will not appear on the screen.

Further security measures may need to be introduced into the system before the movement of money from one customer's personal account to another becomes possible.

The 365-day, 24-hour telephone banking service launched by the Bank of Ireland in May is currently receiving some 4,000 calls per day.