In 1995, I was working for SecureWare and set up the security for the first Internet bank - Security First Network Bank (SFNB).

One of my responsibilities was the secure web server. This machine had two network cards - one connected to the Internet and one connected to the bank. After this machine was correctly configured and secure, I connected it to the Internet.

I went back to my office, logged in to the bank over the Internet and made the world's first Internet banking transaction when I paid Bell South $58.58 on August 15, 1995 for my telephone bill.

If anyone knows of an earlier Internet banking transaction, let me know. I believe that SFNB was one of the first, if not the first, to go live. This was the first SFNB Internet transaction (I know because I'm the one who flipped the switch!).

Even though we were in the same building as SFNB, we had a different ISP so the packets left Atlanta, up through Charlotte to Washington and back down to Atlanta. There were earlier banking transactions when the SFNB software was being tested but these were on the local intranet, not the Internet.

Last updated: February 4, 2017