Internet banking continues to attract new custom with figures showing that traffic in the UK has increased by 65% in the last year.
Online transactions are becoming a way of life, particularly for cash rich, time poor consumers and
Hitwise reports that banking websites now account for 1.42% of all web traffic, up from 0.86% a year ago.
The Dutch financial services company ING is the latest entrant into the online banking sector having launched to a fanfare last month. ING Direct was the 37th most visited banking site in the first week of June but it has some way to go to catch Egg, the most popular internet-only bank, which is 5th overall and has a 5.9% share of the online banking sector.
The study also found that internet users between the ages of 25 and 44 are most active at managing their finances online, accounting for 56% of visitors to the banking sector. Women make up 46% of visitors, with Monday the most popular day for logging on to banking websites.
Despite reservations over security, web-based financial activities are catching on in most markets and Datamonitor predicts that 60 million Europeans will be banking online by the end of 2003 (see Sixty Million Europeans To Bank Online In 2003).
