Internet banking fees at the National Australia Bank will come into force following an overhaul of all fees. It has also announced the closure of 100 branches and a move towards more computer-based banking over the next 12 months.

Staff were formally advised of the charges at televised team meetings yesterday and customers were not the only ones at the back of the queue to be notified of NAB's pricing strategy.

The Finance Sector Union was angered to hear of the plans as late as last night and the Treasurer, Peter Costello, is pushing the bank to inform the public today.

A 20-cent charge will be incurred on Net transactions, effective as of December 1. It costs a bank just one cent to process an Internet transaction.

"It's a hook, line and sinker thing," Lisa Montgomery, product manager at BankChoice, told ZDNet.

"Historically [banks] did exactly the same thing when they introduced ATMs," Montgomery said. Now they're luring people online "with no fee or a low fee, then they'll gradually increase the fees," she added.

"[Banks are] taking away the face-to-face transactions because it's more cost effective to do them over the Net, ATM of telephone," Montgomery said.

NAB admitted that "numbers in out branch network have gone down," although a specific figure wasn't given.

The Finance Sector Union claims that the finance sector, principally banks, shed over 24 percent of its workforce between 1990 and 1999 - a total of 54,600 jobs. "Which we think is the result of a move to new technology," the Union told ZDNet.

NAB launched its Net banking service in March 1999 as a free-fee service and claims that with the onset of Internet fees it has "a variety of things now underway that will bring a fairly big improvement to the service," although specifics wouldn't be given.

"It was always our intention, that when we understood the cost of the service to the company we would introduce a reasonable fee to customers," a NAB spokesperson told ZDNet.

However, not all NAB customers will bear the brunt of the Net charges, with some customers rewarded a monthly rebate of between AU$6 and AU$15 to offset some transaction fees, a NAB customer service representative told ZDNet.

The bank claims all customers will benefit with a certain number of free ATM, EFTPOS, telephone and Internet transactions.

The catch, of course, is that customers are rewarded more for their commitment to invest with NAB and a minimum account balance of AU$5000 must be maintained to receive an additional AU$1 worth of 'free' transactions.

The ANZ currently charges Net transaction fees of 20 cents a shot, although "you can avoid them if you do few transactions a month," an ANZ spokesperson told ZDNet.

Commonwealth Bank charges its customers 40 cents for online transactions on some of its accounts. Although, its "relationship banking" policy ensures that Net fees can be avoided with certain account holders who have significant investments or borrowings with the bank, "usually AU$30,000 or more," a spokesperson said.

Whilst Westpac claims to have no separate Internet banking fees, customers will incur excess transaction charges if they "step outside their guidelines," a Westpac spokesperson said.