Bidding kicked off yesterday for the first URL to carry a £1 million reserve tag. The banks.com domain name, whose current owner is registered in Luton, is being sold by UK online auction house Names123.com. Today the highest bid still stood way below the reserve price, at £600,000. The offer closes on 1 March 2000. The URL currently belongs to Robert Fox, with a PO Box address in Luton, Bedfordshire. It was registered on 9 August 1999. Names123.com MD John Swell was confident the final sale would top the £1 million mark. But banks.com will have to compete for financial online dominance with the likes of bank.com, aleady registered on 12 December 1998. It is silly season in the world of domain names sales at the moment. Last week, the URL business.com became the Web's golden egg when it was sold for a record $7.5 million (£4.6 million). ® Related Story Big bucks URL is the business(.com) More Net finance stuff at Cash Register