While the OP might want to upgrade his mum's laptop, it should be noted that an old MacBook can run any current Linux distribution. These will offer the latest

While the OP might want to upgrade his mum's laptop, it should be noted that an old MacBook can run any current Linux distribution. These will offer the latest software, and will be able to do Internet banking without any issues, obviously. Intel MacBooks from that era tend to pose very few problems, except for Broadcom wireless cards, which have relatively low performance.