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European
Banks Drive Customers to the Internet Channel
A new report from Datamonitor 'European eBanking Market Update'
reveals that in the last twelve months, European banks have been
extremely successful in driving customers to the Internet channel.
Despite investments in eBanking technologies falling from US $
2.1 billion in 2001 to an estimated US $ 1.7 billion in 2002, customer
growth remains very strong and is predicted to reach 75 million
by 2005 as banks begin to reap the returns made on eBanking infrastructure
in 2000 / 2001.
Uptake remains particularly strong in the UK, Germany and the Nordic
region. These constitute the largest and most technologically advanced
eBanking markets in Europe and together, they will account for nearly
55% of Europe's eBanking customers by the end of 2002.
With 9.8 million, the UK has the highest number of online banking
customers followed by Germany with 8.5 million and the Nordics with
8.2 million.
In less mature markets such as Italy, France and Spain, uptake
of eBanking has also been on the rise between 2000 and 2002. Datamonitor
expects French eBanking numbers to grow from a current estimate
of 4.7 million to 9 million in 2005.
In Italy, Datamonitor predicts this number will reach 8.2 million
by 2005 compared to an estimated 4.6 million by the end of 2002.
Meanwhile in Spain online banking customer numbers will rise from
almost 4 million in 2002 to almost 6.8 million in 2005.
Christine Skouenborg, Financial services technology analyst at
Datamonitor, comments:
"Continuing growth in eBanking uptake is clearly good news
for banks, but it is important to remember that banks are no longer
viewing their Internet channels in isolation. Rather banks are focusing
on integrating and optimizing all their channels, so as to achieve
product and service consistency and let customer relationship management
projects come to fruition. As a result, any recovery in eBanking
technology spending will be fuelled mainly by banks' efforts to
achieve unified channel architectures and to enhance workflow processes."
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