The inbox is a key to serving online customers profitably. It’s where your customers will be reminded to pay bills or bump up credit lines. Urgent emails to home and work will notify them when balances have dropped perilously low or if someone in Timbuktu has tried to use their debit card number.

However, the inbox is also the epicenter of a fierce war between legitimate marketers, those with permission to communicate, and hucksters of all shapes and sizes. We believe that tools to control inbox clutter and spam will eventually win out, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Even though more than 500 billion marketing messages will clutter U.S. inboxes in 2003 , financial institutions shouldn’t be discouraged about expanding their own electronic messaging programs.  While users are increasingly skeptical about email pitches, by a 3-to-1 margin they prefer it over postal mail for receiving marketing messages.* Despite spotty service standards by merchants, email is now the preferred way to communicate with customer service, favored by 57% of users, up 7 points from 50% last year.

In researching this report we looked at the messaging programs of the 47 largest North American financial institutions as measured by registered online users. While several banks, including Bank One, Citibank, Charter One, and Zions, have embarked on aggressive outbound messaging programs, most are still on the sidelines with programs on the planning board for 2003 or 2004. On the
e-statement front, credit unions are more active with hundreds already in production and more coming online every month. 

This report covers four major types of financial e-messaging:

• Alerts/confirmations: Account-specific activity or balances
• E-statements: Statements or statement notifications
• Service messages/alerts: Primary goal is to inform (non-sales)
• Marketing messages/email lists: Primary goal is to sell

Table 1

U.S. Email Marketing Forecast

billions of messages, billions of dollars

Source: Forrester, 8/01 as cited in eMarketer’s Email Marketing Report, 8/02              CAGR = compounded annual growth rate

Table 2

U.S. Financial E-statement¹ Forecast

millions of messages

Source: Online Banking Report, 1/03        HH = household       CAGR = compounded annual growth rate

(1)       E-statement defined as any periodic statement of a bank, loan, or credit card account delivered to cardholders; the statement can be delivered in the message, attached to the message, or through a unique link to a stored copy of the statement (excludes simple notification message, e.g., you have a new statement, log in to your account at www.yourbank.com/login to view)

(2)       Number of statements received per household that subscribes to any financial e-statement

(3)       Col 1 x Col 2

(4)     Col 1 x Col 2 x 12

Table 3

U.S. Financial E-messaging¹ Forecast

millions of messages

Source: Online Banking Report, 1/03        HH = household

Notes: (1) E-statement defined as any periodic statement of a bank, loan, or credit card account delivered to cardholders; the statement can be delivered in the message, attached to the message, or through a unique link to a stored copy of the statement (excludes simple notification message, e.g., you have a new statement, log in to your account at www.yourbank.com/login to view)

(2) Number of statements received per household that subscribes to any financial e-statement; (3) Col 1 x Col 2; (4) Col 1 x Col 2 x 12

Table 4

U.S. Financial E-statement/E-message Combined¹ Forecast

millions of messages

Source: Online Banking Report, 1/03        HH = household

Note: (1) Number of e-statements and e-message received per household; (2) Col 1 x Col 2; (3) Col 1 x Col 2 x 12