Table 1
Online Banking vs. Other Internet Activities
percent of total

Source: Pew Internet Project, 11/02

Table 2
Online Banking Activities

percent of online bankers* who have performed the following activities during past 6 months

Sources: OBR 6/02 (n = 191); Question: “Which of these ONLINE activities have you done in the past 6 months?”
*Qualifying activity: considered an online banker if the respondent had done any one of these activities

Despite what you might think after hearing all the horror stories from customer service, user satisfaction is very high with a 95% positive rating in 2002, an excellent score for any consumer service. This year only 3% of online banking users said they were not satisfied, down from 9% in 2001 (Table 3, below). Dissatisfied users mostly cited technical issues, such as service interruptions or slow processing (Table 4, below).

Table 3
Satisfaction Ratings of Online Banking Users
percent of total, Q2 data from each year

Source: American Banker/Gallup Consumer Survey 2002 of 1,000 household heads interviewed between Feb. 6 and March 10, 2002; 2001 Consumer Survey of 1,001 household heads interviewed between Feb. 14 and Mar. 16, 2001; 2000 Consumer Survey included 1,000 respondents interviewed between May 23 and June 18, 2000; respondents must have at least one account with a financial services provider to qualify (checking, deposit, mutual fund, brokerage account, loan, or credit card); the 8% to 12% so-called unbanked households are excluded from the survey; error estimated at +/-  3% (95% confidence).

Table 4
Reasons for Dissatisfaction with Online Banking¹
percent of dissatisfied users citing each reason, Q2 data of each year

Source: American Banker/Gallup 2000, 2001 Consumer Surveys

(1) Warning: Comparison between years has little meaning due to very small sample sizes:
      n = 59 in 2001, n= 30 in 2000

(2) Of course, the majority of online banking users get the service for free.