Help our elderly with online transfers.

07/07/2023

Online banking transfers have become one of the most common methods for making payments. However, many elderly people are not accustomed to using new technologies for their most common financial transactions. Therefore, they prefer to deal with cash, which they know well. As we have indicated in this series, they need your help to overcome their fears and to be able to use the internet as a tool. To this end, we provide these tips and remind you to help them the first time they want to make online transfers.

Although there are different ways of making bank transfers (either in person: at the branch or at the ATM; or electronically: online or by telephone), we can explain the advantages of using the internet to our elderly: (i) the free or lower cost of online bank transfers compared to those made at the branch; (ii) the convenience of not having to go to the branch; and (iii) availability, as they can make them at any time of the day without having to pay attention to the branch’s specific opening hours.

We also need to make the drawbacks clear to them. For now, they need a minimum level of digital skills and a secure device, with up-to-date antivirus software.

Although the process for issuing an online bank transfer is simple, we remind you, so that you can tell them in detail, of the most common steps they have to follow, although each bank may have some particularities:

• (i) Firstly, log in to online banking from the bank's website or app. To do this, you must be registered with online banking and have a password to access and operate it.
• (ii) Once inside online banking, you will usually find a "transfers" option in the main menu. In other cases, the transfer service will be in the operations menu of your current account.
• (iii) Generally, you can choose between national transfers, transfers between your own accounts, transfers to other accounts at the same bank and international transfers.
• (iv) Next, you select the account of origin of the transfer and fill in the boxes with the receiving account number (including the IBAN), the amount of the transfer, the concept and the name of the beneficiary.
• (v) Once the details have been duly completed, you sign the transaction. Banks have different ways of signing transactions in order to ensure the identity of the payer. Normally, one of your codes (such as the code for accessing online banking) and, most commonly, an additional code that will be sent by SMS to your mobile phone. The coordinates card (tarjeta de coordenadas, a card with a code on it that is provided by the bank and of which there is only one copy) also still works. It is very important that our elderly understand the importance of safeguarding these security mechanisms properly and not sharing them with anyone.
• (vi) Once the transaction has been completed, the last step is the confirmation that the process has been accepted. Normally, below this image you will see the "download PDF" option, which tends to be the proof of the online bank transfer.