Bank of Queensland has been expanding into every state and territory over the past few years as it moves from being a local bank into a serious player. And like any serious player, Bank of Queensland has put a lot of attention into online banking.

Bank of Queensland’s online banking site might appear a little spartan but the interface is clean and well designed. Everything is easy to reach via a main vertical menu which breaks down each section into a series of horizontal tabs. Help is never far away, with rollover tips and a link that will take you directly to help for the specific page you’re viewing. Despite the apparent simplicity, the site performed relatively slowly compared to some more sophisticated sites.

You can view recent transactions and filter them by date or amount. You can also search for specific text and export in a variety of formats. Internal and external transfers are also handled, although international transfers will only be available some time late 2008.

An innovative feature is the ability to create ‘delegate’ sub-accounts with access to some or all of the functions of your accounts, including placing transaction limits. This is particularly useful if you travel and want to use a restricted account on publicly-accessible PCs.

Bank of Queensland also has an extensive mobile SMS alert service; you can request a balance and set alerts for specific transactions or account activity. Currently these services are all SMS based, although mobile browsers will be supported from August this year. No support for performing actual transactions via mobile yet though.

Bank of Queensland is one of the few that give you the ability to create truly strong passwords. The minimum is 8 characters, up to a max of 20 characters, and you can use alphanumerics as well as @#$%&+=?. A security token is also available, although only if you increase your transaction limit to $10,000. At login you'll see a big page outlining the latest phishing threats, and there’s the ability to disable access to online banking until you call and reactivate it.

Innovative no frills online banking is what Bank of Queensland offers, and with additional features planned to be rolled out over the next several months, the experience will only get better.