Wait around and things inevitably turn full circle. Still, the circle is spinning ever faster these days. It is less than a year since financial institutions were damned for their failure to properly elucidate an Internet strategy.

Make haste, the markets urged, savagely cutting at the valuations of companies they perceived as laggards, even if those institutions saw themselves more as cautious.

Now, those selfsame analysts are turning back and the new rage is for physical interaction with customers. Institutions are being punished for putting all their eggs in one basket and setting up stand-alone Internet operations. So dramatic has been the turnaround that AIB has shelved its plans for an Internet bank.

More fundamentally, First-e, a bank founded specifically to operate on the Net, is talking about the necessity of setting up a branch operation in the markets where it operates.

To the ordinary punter, the U-turn is less surprising. Computers are functional but soulless and most people will instinctively choose the option that offers human contact. . We may have come a long way from the days when the local bank manager would know most customers by name, but we are a long way off the day when people will warm to a keyboard and a flashing cursor.