Update:  The Chase bank website is back up and running, at least since I checked earlier this morning.  As the Associated Press reports, however, the site is still having outage issues.  I still have all my money.  How about you?  Anyone else feel the need to stuff some mattresses and keep that gold jewelry?

Not many details around this yet, but it looks like Chase’s online banking service has been down most of today. Chase’s website went down Monday night, affecting all of its 16.5 million customers that bank online. The exact time of the downed website has not been revealed, but it’s certainly ruffling more than a few feathers.

It’s something I noticed this morning, when I tried to login to my own checking account. I got a message on the main site, where the login box is, saying the service is temporarily unavailable. Not thinking much of it, I went directly to the Accounts Login page, where I received an even bigger error message, with apologies for the inconvenience.

Inconvenience indeed. I don’t have any bills due today, or any urgent need to conduct my banking online at this very moment. But what about the other customers that do? As banking becomes more virtual, financial institutions (and all the other institutions looking to get in on this credits bandwagon) will need to pay attention to situations like this–so they can avoid them all together.

With banks like Chase beginning to offer specialized tools such as iPhone apps that enable remote check deposits, the realization that prolonged downtime can truly upset an individual’s ability to conduct business becomes that much more real. Ever since moving to a small town, I’ve relied more heavily on online banking to handle my own affairs.

According to the Associated Press, Chase Bank seems somewhat dedicated to customer service, saying “The bank will work with any customers who had online bill payment deadlines they couldn’t meet because of the outage, Kelly said. He also urged Chase customers to use the telephone banking service, which was operating normally, as were its 15,500 ATMs.”

It hasn’t been that long since consumers overcame their security concerns for online banking, and with the rise of online and mobile commerce, now is not a good time for any financial institution to have to test the faith of its customers.