The UK is lagging behind its European neighbours Germany, France and Denmark in online banking uptake, says Internet monitoring company NetValue. While more than four million Britons visited a financial Web site from home in January the numbers compare unfavourably with those of Germany - Europe's keenest online banking nation - where more than 5.4 million of the population surfed and banked during the same time frame.
Results of the study indicate that French users spend the most time at financial Web sites, with an average duration of two hours in the month. German users remain on a finance site for 86 minutes, with users in Hong Kong staying for 72 minutes. The UK comes only ninth in the duration ranking, with users spending just 35 minutes on a financial site. This is closer to the US figure of 31.9 minutes per stay.
Spain has the highest percentage of male visitors and also has the highest percentage of 24 and under users visiting finance sites, reports NetValue. The male to female ratio is most equal in the US, which also has the largest percentage of over 35 users.
Amongst the countries NetValue currently measures, Korea is the world leader for Internet banking, with half of all home Internet users either visiting a banking or investment Web site in January. Korean traffic to finance sites more than doubled from 2.4 million visitors in October 2000 to 5.2 million visitors in January 2001.