US BANKING GIANT, Wells Fargo, is to start selling secure online vaults for people to store their personal documents and records. It will be the first big bank to offer the service which they see as a partial replacement to a safe deposit box.

Of course, unlike a safe deposit box, customers will not be able to stash away precious Jewels or Da Vinci code-like cryptic puzzle boxes, but the bank does hope that it will offer an alternative for people who want to do away with cluttered filing cabinets or shoe boxes securely tucked under the bed.

The service, dubbed Vsafe, will be able to store everything from digital versions of birth certificates, wills, driver's licenses, passports, family photos etc. But the service certainly doesn’t come cheap. The bank is charging almost $180 a year for its biggest online safe, with monthly fees standing at rates of : $4.95 for 1 gigabyte of storage: $9.95 for three gigabytes; and $14.95 for six gigabytes. The bank reckons that the new system will be a godsend for travellers, especially, one would presume, those who have never heard of Gmail.

But Wells Fargo is probably hoping that the fact they’ve been around for 156 years and that they promise to encrypt all digital documents, will help people swallow the bitter pill of actually having to pay for virtual storage space. µ

L'Inq
Wells Fargo