Just before Christmas 2002, I was reviewing my limited savings and decided they needed to be spruced up. They were languishing in various old bank accounts, which do not pay particularly high interest rates e.g. old student accounts. So, I thought I'd shop around on the internet.

Accounts Available
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All of the accounts can be operated via the internet. Deposits can be made via electronic transfer or cheque. There is no withdrawal notice period. Postal statements are available, at least once per year. Accounts are available to anyone 16 or over who is a permanent UK resident (excluding Channel Islands and Isle of Man), except the Investor account which is only available to customers who already hold an Egg ISA.

I chose to apply for the Egg Internet account. Applications are done online; the questions are fairly standard apart from the security questions. You must give your date of birth, mother's maiden name, memorable date, memorable address and password. I suggest you choose relatives' anniversaries and addresses, as I find it embarrassingly easy to forget anything else. Another easy to remember alternative might be a school address or your school graduation date. (If you encounter problems navigating the website, check you're using the equivalent of Internet Explorer 4.0+, set to accept cookies.)

To log in, you simply go to the Egg website (www.egg.com) and click on "your accounts" in the top right hand corner. You will have to fill in some security details: First Name, Surname, Date of Birth, Postcode, Mother's Maiden Name and Password. Once you have logged in, you will be able to access all your Egg accounts. You will remain logged in until you log out or have been inactive for 15 minutes, in which case Egg will log you out automatically to prevent security risks. Once logged out you will have to re-enter your security details. To be safe, I would suggest that you only access your accounts from your home computer unless you can ensure that no-one else uses your computer within 15 minutes.

The more cautious among my readers will have spotted the potential security problem - if you forget your log in details or someone else manages to discover them and you can't access your account, how can you contact Egg without using the secure email facility? Don't worry: Egg have already thought of this. If you need to amend your password or any log in details, simply call them on 0845 3660047. They will ask you 8 different 'security' questions, to which only you are likely to know the answer - a mixture of personal information and account information. Once your identity is confirmed, they will make any amendments you require. You don't have to wait until you forget your password - you can call Egg as often as you like to change it.

Overall Impressions
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There are a number of additional services that are not available through my traditional offline bank accounts. I can name my accounts - I've called my savings account "Rainy Day"! I can view all my Egg accounts in the same place and instantly compare credit balances, e.g. savings accounts, with debit balances, e.g. loans. There is also the option of upgrading free of charge to Egg Money Manager, which allows you to view other non-Egg accounts that you currently have online access to alongside your Egg accounts. (You will need the equivalent of Internet Explorer 5.0+ to use this service and the accuracy of the account information will depend on the other banks you use.) You must download the "password safe" (an ActiveX component) to each computer that you wish to use Egg Money Manager on - this stores your non-Egg account login details in secure encrypted format (industry standard 128-bit encryption). I have not experienced any problems with Egg Money Manager, although it is rather annoying that it's only available for PC users. Egg has stated: "[We] assure you we're looking to make Money Manager available to as many users as possible, however, until a suitable alternative to Microsoft ActiveX is available, we will not be able to offer this service to Mac users."

The only minor irritation I have encountered with Egg is their very occasional site outages - which are more than forgivable as these affect every site on the internet. These do not normally last long and Egg provides a very handy notification service. Just give them an email address (it does not need to be your registered address) and they will email you as soon as the site is back online. I find this very useful unlike Capital One who merely post an irksome "check back later, we're very sorry" message.