Calls have been renewed for a .bank top-level domain to be created to improve the security of online banking.

The idea is that a .bank domain name would be so expensive that only banks would be able to afford them.

But critics have claim the system will not prevent fraudsters hacking into domain name servers and replacing legitimate addresses with malicious ones.

Another criticism is the possibility that a user might not recognise that a domain name was not .bank.

Security researcher Miko Hypponen said in a recent blog: 'Today anybody can get a .com domain with a fake name and fake address. This is not a silver bullet. A new top-level-domain (TLD) would not be the end of the phishing problem. But it would be a helpful top-level domain and it would stop a particular subset of phishing completely.'

Hypponon argues that the reason there are no illegitimate government web sites is that fraudsters cannot get a .gov domain name.

No financial services companies in the UK have yet said they are considering the system.