(MONEY Magazine) – THIS MONTH: --Grab great savings and borrowing deals at a credit union. --Why credit-card rates and fees may go up

Shopping by computer is ideal when you know exactly what you want and simply need to find it at the best price. That's true whether you're looking for a music CD--like rock band U2's latest album, Pop--or a moneymaking CD, as in certificate of deposit.

By firing up your Mac or PC and logging on to the Internet sites of the dozen or so banks that peddle CDs and money-market accounts online, you can boost the yearly payout on your savings by a percentage point or more over the rate available at a typical bank. One reason banks on the World Wide Web offer better deals is that doing business online is cheaper than operating and staffing a branch office. But bankers also recognize that customers may need an inducement to venture into cyberspace. "High rates attract people," says Jim Bruene, editor of the industry newsletter Online Banking Report, "not the fact that it's cool to do Internet banking."

For example, Security First Network Bank, which operates only on the Web, recently paid an annual percentage yield (APY) of 5.9% on its six-month CD, well above the national average of 4.8%. Moreover, some banks offer higher rates to Internet customers than to those who walk in the door. Go to one of the 44 branches of South Bend, Ind.-based First Source Bank, for example, and you'll typically find a one-year CD yielding 5.1%. Visit the bank's Website, however, and you can grab a 6.2% payout.

Of course, unwired savers can earn similar lofty payouts via the phone by checking out MONEY's monthly listing of top-yielding CDs and money-market accounts on page 45. But the banks that top our monthly roundup usually require minimum investments of $5,000 to $10,000. Banks on the Web often accept deposits as small as $100.

To help you find the highest-paying CDs in cyberspace, we provide the Internet addresses and best savings deals of eight top online banks in the table below. You can find daily updates on the rates these and other banks are offering on the Net at Bank Rate Monitor's site (www.bankrate.com).

Once you decide which CD you want, about half the Net banks will let you lock in the rate by filling out and submitting an application online. (You then snail mail a check for the amount of your deposit.) The application will ask for your name, address and Social Security number. As long as you're using a so-called secure browser that scrambles messages--such as the popular Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer programs--and the bank site employs the sophisticated encryption technology needed to receive coded information, the odds of someone's intercepting your vital statistics are minuscule, says Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. (To verify that the site can handle encrypted messages, call the bank's 800 number.) If you're uncomfortable launching sensitive info into cyberspace, you can just print out an application and mail it along with your check.

So far, only a handful of banks actually sell CDs and other savings products directly over the Net. Many experts predict, however, that as word spreads of how inexpensively banks can attract deposits on the Web, more and more will offer their wares on the infobahn. "Online operating costs are so low," says Bill Burnham, banking analyst at Piper Jaffray, "that I think we'll see even more Internet CD specials within the next five years."

Finally, one caution: Internet scam artists are capable of creating sites for fake banks with authentic-sounding names or even copying the Web page of a well-known bank and giving it an address similar to the original. So before sending an application or money to any online bank, check the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's Website (www.fdic.gov) to be sure the bank is listed in the FDIC's database of 11,500 insured institutions. If it is, call the bank to verify that the Web address you're using is correct. That way, you can be certain you're getting a high-rate savings deal, not a high-tech con job.