Intelligent Finance, Halifax's online bank, has lost £88 million, in just four months of operation. That's about a million quid a day, not including weekends of course

By comparison, Egg, the Prudential's online bank. Egg reported an annual loss of £155 million yesterday, but said it would break even by Q4. Of course IF's figures also include start-up costs.

According to a statement released by IF, it has approved close to £1 billion worth of borrowing in the four months of operation. The bank said it had received 165,000 account applications, up from 80,000 by the end of December. IF said that 54 per cent of its business is done online, against an expected share of 30 per cent.

Initially scheduled for July last year, If's launch was pushed back because of concerns about the ability of the Web site to cope with traffic. The service went live on November 30. ®