After a cautious beginning, Datamonitor’s research shows that banks have by and large been successful in their attempts to migrate their customer base onto the internet. Datamonitor subsequently forecasts that the ebanking technology market will double over the next four years, growing from $2.7 billion in 2001 to almost $5 billion by 2005.
The PC will remain the most popular means of access followed by wireless devices then interactive digital TV (iDTV). By 2005, Datamonitor forecasts that almost 35 million customers will be banking via WAP.
Siân Jones,analyst at Datamonitor said “In spite of some recent setbacks, eBanking is still the strongest growth story in European retail banking. The availability of more and more value-added services, such as account aggregation and online advice, will going to continue driving strong consumer uptake of eBanking services. The challenge for banks now will be to hang on to these customers through using advanced personalisation and one-to-one marketing technologies to build up loyalty.”
“We are particularly excited by the potential of mobile devices. Although there has been some initial customer disappointment in WAP services, we firmly believe that, when higher bandwidth networks and suitable handsets become widely available, mobile banking will become a killer mCommerce application. Our research has shown that banks are very committed to investment in this area: after all, mobile phones are ideal for receiving timely financial information. These kind of services are highly `sticky’ should also help build customer loyalty” she concluded.
