Bank of Ireland is transferring its commercial banking services for business customers onto the Internet (www.boiceb.com).

The extension will allow users to remotely access accounts and authorise payments to customers in real time. A company's accounts, balances and transactions will be available to view and manipulate from any desktop PC with an Internet connection. Customers can transfer money between various branches of the company's account, and appoint predefined beneficiaries for online payments, domestically and internationally. Bank of Ireland says the service is completely secured using 128 bit encryption and digital signatures developed by Baltimore Technologies.

This is the first application of sophisticated encryption technology by an Irish bank, and Bank of Ireland has said it welcomes the recent publication of the government's framework document on cryptography and digital signatures.

The new commercial electronic banking service will be fully EMU and Year 2000 compliant, and will replace the current commercial banking services - Password and Keybank - currently operated by the bank. Password which targeted the higher end of the commercial market was based on client-server software, and Keybank, for smaller businesses, was delivered through old Minitel technology. Minitel has said it will withdraw its service next year, which is not Year 2000 compliant. Bank of Ireland says it will continue to charge the same rates for its services.

Bank of Ireland is in the process of transferring between 2,000 and 3,000 existing customers to the new system. It says the new service will be widely available later in the year.