Definition: Background banking is an automatic update via the Internet of your financial software data, such as account balances, transaction downloads and stock updates.
With background banking, or automatic updates, you set your financial software up to do downloads at set times. You will probably not notice the updates taking place, since they are designed to run in the background. That is, you continue to use you software uninterrupted by the update, the update procedure itself is transparent to you.
Also Known As: automatic download
Examples: I set up Microsoft Money for background banking. Now my accounts update every weekday at 6:00 p.m. without me having to so much as click my mouse.