There has been more truly innovative developments during the past year than in the first four years of Net banking combined. Statement aggregation, email payments, and X.com, to name a few. The following chart summarized the major events since you last went into the annual business planning cycle:

1999 and 2000 Events

Source: Online Banking Report, 6/00

• Rapid growth in person-to-person (P2P) Internet payment usage: P2P payments were the first online banking feature to gain “gee whiz, why didn’t I think of that” status … crucial for generating buzz and word-of-mouth.

• More capital investment flowing to the sector: X.com, PrimeStreet.com, Lending Tree, NextCard, NetBank, CompuBank, PeopleFirst, and Virtual Bank have attracted more than $1 billion in total capital during the past 12 months.

• Easier-to-use services: During the past 12 months bank Web sites have become far more user-friendly with simple things such as login buttons on the front page and well-organized FAQs, to more advanced features such as email alerts and statements.

• Internet billing and payment continues to attract considerable attention and capital: We may finally hit the inflection point in 2001 where usage increases dramatically.

• Negative Trends in Online Banking Use

• Bill payment is still a bust: Some 15 years after its introduction, there are still only about 3 to 4 million active bill payments households

• Bank Web sites are anything but sticky: According to data from PC Data www.pcdataonline.com  across 147 banking URLs that make the top 10,000 Web site list, total traffic was 20 million composite visitors⁴ in June, up from 18.8 million in May.