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"I would be willing to bet that at the very least, all of the IT delivery managers at big banks will be reviewing their systems and saying: 'there but for the grace of God'" says Ken Allan, an IT specialist at Ernst & Young.

The Northern Rock crisis is not only a wake-up call for banks but for many other businesses, such as budget airlines, which have increasingly come to rely on the internet as a first point of

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call for customer service.

Allan says banks and other organisations which rely on internet systems could prepare for surges in demand by laying on additional bandwidth and by making careful preparations for emergencies.

"The pragmatic approach is to have contingency plans - a layered approach. What is your on-tap capacity, and near-line crisis capacity and what can be brought in at short notice?" Allan continues.

He notes that when systems fail having a second line of defence, such as a reliable phone-in service that is quickly scaled-up in a crisis, can help quickly to reassure many clients that things are not spinning out of control.

Despite this, experts warn that organisations are unlikely to ever devise a system of internet banking which is guaranteed never to fail.

"If everyone went online and tried to take their money out from any internet banking operation I am sure their systems would crash as well," says a senior analyst at a credit rating agency in London.