Summary
According to data from Compete's consumer panel, March rebounded from the lower traffic in February. Every product, except standard savings accounts, posted increases in the number of applications. Credit cards were the biggest gainer (up 24% in shoppers, up 13% in applications) following sharp declines the past few months. Home loans market performed similarly, with double digit increases in applications for both purchase (up 15%) and refinances (up 12%). 

New this month, we have valid year-over-year comparisons shown (see note 1). Compared to a year ago, both checking and credit cards applicants and shoppers have risen significantly. Home loan shoppers are up slightly, but applications are up. 

Commentary

• Credit cards saw a large jump in both shoppers and applicants. The credit crisis seems to have benefited the credit cards market as applications, especially for balance transfer cards, have increased. Compared to a year ago, shoppers are up 47% and applicants are up 53%. However, conversion dropped by 2% from February.

• Deposits saw overall shopper loss in all three segments during March but applications for checking were up 2% as were high yield savings (up 8%). Last year at this time, deposits were increasing across all segments. In March of 2008, however, applicant levels are below what they were in 2007 with 31% drop in high yield savings applicants and a 7% decline in all savings accounts.

• After a terrible February, refinance mortgages posted a 27% gain in shoppers as well as 12% gain in applicants. Year over year refinance applications are up 32% from a year ago. Purchase mortgages also saw a similar improvement from last month with a gain of 23% over last year. Home equity had the largest gain in applications in the month of March as leads/applications (note 2) grew 34%. Year over year however, applications are down 32% due to the housing crisis of the past few months.

About the Financial Services Scorecard
A year ago, we introduced the Financial Services Monthly Performance scorecard produced by Compete. It summarizes the overall performance of 23 large U.S. financial institutions and lead-generation sites. Refer here for the detailed methodology as well as companies tracked.

Notes:
1. New this month: Year-over-year comparisons are now included in the monthly table. Because of ongoing methodology tweaks, the percentages in this table may be slightly different than if you went back to the data from a year ago and calculated the change. 

2. Leads/applicants = Leads or applications depending on whether the site being tracked is a lead generation site or an actual lender.

In a unscientific poll of 500 Facebook users (see note 1), we found that 13% of respondents are interested in accessing their bank balance through their Facebook account (red bar below).

Source: Online Banking Report, 9 April 2008, n = 500

While that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the idea, it's potentially enough early adopters to get the service rolling. Most of the interest was from the younger segments. For example, 18% of 18-to-24 year-olds said they'd probably use Facebook banking (gray bar below) compared to about 5% of the 25-49 group (green and yellow bars below).

Source: Online Banking Report, 9 April 2008, n = 500

But it will take education to move "Facebook banking" into the mainstream. The majority of respondents, 70%, said there is "no way" they'd bank within Facebook and another 13% said probably not, resulting in a strong 83% negative rating. Given well-founded concerns surrounding online security, that's not surprising. 

For more information:

• See previous posts on Facebook banking apps from mShift and Galaxy
• See Online Banking Report on Social Personal Finance 

Note:
1. Survey was conducted April 9 through Facebook's polling mechanism. Total respondents = 500. Respondents are self-selected so the results should not be used to forecast specific demand.

It's been a while since we looked at the actual usage of payment, personal finance, lending, and banking apps on Facebook (previous coverage here; see note 1). And assuming the numbers provided by Facebook are accurate, it's not good news. 

Overall, the banking and personal finance apps have anemic usage levels totaling just 263 daily users (for apps with more than 1 daily user). That does not include virtual currencies or stock tracking/investing applications (see note 2). In comparison, the most popular general Facebook app, FunWall, has more than 3 million daily users.

But the number will grow rapidly if major financial institutions add balance inquiry functionality such as (#4) MyMoney from Fiserv's Galaxy unit (previous coverage here) and mShift's Key Point Credit Union app discussed here (only 1 daily user, so it did not make our table).  Activity in Facebook personal finance apps yesterday (13 March 2008):

*See comment 1

**Does not include apps with less than 2 users

Notes:

1. You cannot make a meaningful comparison with last summer's activity because Facebook changed the way it reports usage. Previously, the company reported the number of application downloads and now it shows the much, much smaller "active daily user" total. For example, in July 2007, LendingClub had already had more than 11,000 downloads. Under the new measurement system it tallies just 26 daily users which puts it in third place (see table below).

2. The leading stock tracking app, Fantasy Stock Exchange, has 7,990 daily users. The most popular virtual currency AceBucks has 11,300 daily users.

Commentary
The revolving credit season was off to a quick start as credit card applications posted a double-digit increase. However, all other product categories declined.

• Monthly credit card applications rose 11% in November and conversion was up for all but one tracked company. Almost all companies experienced double-digit application growth as well.

• Several key companies in the mortgage refinance space experienced significant losses among both shoppers and submitted leads/applications. Purchase shopper activity dropped 8% from October while applications saw a 19% drop.

• Home equity saw a 27% decrease in shoppers, and a 13% decrease in total leads and applications.

• In deposits, there was a slight decrease from last month in shoppers and applicants for savings and checking accounts. High-yield savings had 13% fewer shoppers. However, with large application growth turned in by several companies, total application volume slipped just 1%.

About the Financial Services Scorecard
In April, we introduced the Financial Services Monthly Performance scorecard produced by Compete. It summarizes the overall performance of 23 large U.S. financial institutions and lead-generation sites. Refer here for the detailed methodology as well as companies tracked.

Update, Dec. 10: The original chart, published Dec. 7, contained a mistake in the home equity application count. The correct number, shown above, is 82,362 instead of the 111,139 in the previous chart. NetBanker and Compete regret the error.

In April, we introduced the Financial Services Monthly Performance scorecard produced by Compete. It summarizes the overall performance of 23 large U.S. financial institutions and lead-generation sites. Refer here for the detailed methodology as well as companies tracked. 

Commentary
Online credit card applications were up as consumers prepared for holiday shopping. In contrast, home loans continued their downward trend.

• Monthly credit card applications rose 4% in October and conversion was up 5 points, reversing the prior month-over-month trend. 
• Several key competitors in the home loans refinance and purchase categories saw significant losses among both shoppers and submitted leads/applications bringing total submitted mortgage activity down 11% from September.
• Home equity saw a 14% decrease in shoppers and a 14% decline in total leads and applications submitted. Both direct lenders and lead aggregators saw declines this past month.
• In deposits, there were 4% more shoppers across all categories (checking, savings and high-yield savings).  Only checking, however, was able to convert that into more online applications with a 7% increase.

The world's largest online banking base (note 1) grew an impressive 11% year-over-year, rising to 22.8 million active users, an increase of 2.2 million from 30 Sep 2006 (note 2). 

Bill payment grew slower, up 7% or 800,000 users, ending the period at 11.6 million active users. Overall bill pay volume is $224 billion annually, or $1,600 per user per month. Bill pay as a percent of online banking fell more than one point to just under 51% (note 3).  

Online Banking     Bill Pay     % of OL using Bill Pay

2007        22.8 mil            11.6 mil              50.8%

2006        20.6 mil            10.8 mil              52.4%

Change    +2.2 mil            +800,000            (1.6%)
                +10.7%               +7.4%

Notes:
1. As far as we know, no bank in the world has more active online users; however, one could argue that PayPal, with 37.5 million active users in the latest quarter, is larger. Interestingly, ING Direct is closing in on BofA on a worldwide basis. With its Sharebuilder acquisition, ING Direct has 20 million accounts worldwide, about 30% in the United States, although not all are active, which BofA defines as being online within the past 90 days.

2. According to Doug Brown, Bank of America's SVP Product Innovation E-Commerce Channel Services, as cited during his BAI Retail Delivery presentation.

In April, we introduced the Financial Services Monthly Performance scorecard produced by Compete. It summarizes the overall performance of 23 large U.S. financial institutions and lead-generation sites. Refer here for the detailed methodology as well as companies tracked. 

Commentary
In September, leads for home equity, mortgage purchase and refinance continued to decline. Regular savings accounts also dropped significantly, although the high-yield version savings booked an 8% increase.

Other highlights in September:  

• Within the deposit category, checking accounts and regular savings declined; however, the high-yield category showed good growth with 137,000 online applications from two million shoppers, 11,000 more than last month.
• While there were 8% more online credit card shoppers this month, lower conversion rates resulted in a 3% decline in submitted applications. 
• On the loan side, both home equity and purchase mortgage categories experienced more shopping activity. But once again, a decline in conversion rates resulted in fewer submitted leads/applications. 
• Refinance mortgages continued to slide in both online shopping activity (down 14%) and submitted leads/applications (down 8%). Several lenders saw double-digit percentage declines.

Here's a great slide from Mary Meeker's Web 2.0 Summit presentation (download at Morgan Stanley) showing the dominance of social networking sites. If you haven't been able to get management to buy off on your social media plans, circulate this slide.

These are the top 10 domains now compared to two years ago as measured by Alexa. The red sites on the left have dropped out of the top 10 giving way to the green sites. Web 2.0-oriented sites can now claim six of the top-10 slots, including four social networks: Facebook, Orkut (Google), Myspace and Hi5, and two user-generated sites:  YouTube and Wikipedia.    

Also according to Morgan Stanley, worldwide Internet use passed the 1 billion mark early last year, and is estimated to hit 1.3 billion this year. The chart also shows the distribution of Internet users by region. Note the dominance of the red part of the bar, and, no, that's not Republicans, it's Asia/Pacific.

In April, we introduced the Financial Services Monthly Performance scorecard produced by Compete. It summarizes the overall performance of 23 large U.S. financial institutions and lead-generation sites. Refer here for the detailed methodology as well as companies tracked. 

Commentary
In August, the continued rise in interest rates led to a drop in home equity, mortgage refinance, and credit card applications while deposit accounts and purchase mortgage applications were up.

Some highlights from the monthly activity: 

• Credit Card applications were down 2% overall, but Chase (27%) and Capital One (5%) grew applications and conversion compared to July
• Savings applications were up across the group with the exception of Citibank which posted a 13% decline
• For high-yield savings, only HSBC and ING Direct saw both application and conversion growth
• Home equity application/lead volume and conversion dropped across the group with declines observed at 9 of 16 providers
• Purchase mortgage  application/lead volume was up over July with Countrywide and Capital One both showing notable growth
• The refinance mortgage market was flat overall, masking strong application/lead growth at Countrywide, E-Loan and NexTag while declines were recorded at LendingTree/GetSmart, LowerMyBills and Low.com

Compete's latest data confirms the spike in traffic at three-week old online personal finance startup Mint. The startup created considerable buzz after winning the $50,000 grand prize at TechCrunch in September (see previous coverage here).  

According to Compete, Mint's 200,000 unique visitors in September equaled that of $17-billion Webster Bank, the 64th largest U.S. bank or thrift holding company according to American Banker (Q1 2007). It will be interesting to see if Mint experiences a dramatic traffic decline after the publicity-driven visits slow down.   

Traffic at Mint.com (blue) vs. Webster Bank <websteronline.com> (red)

Just like a fluctuating body temperature is an indicator of your underlying health, your credit score is a similar measure of your financial well being. Yet, in a recent poll of Facebook users age 18-24, we found that fewer than 20% had seen their credit report or credit score within the past year (see note 1, 2).

Furthermore, today's tightened credit market has put a premium on having a good credit score, even in the upper end "prime segment." Here's the tease from the top of the Personal Journal section of today's Wall Street Journal, "Lending squeeze raises the bar on credit scores." (article here, see note 3).

Clearly there is a need here. Most U.S adults, especially younger ones, should track their credit score at least quarterly. However, fewer than 10% of adults subscribe to credit monitoring services, partly because of their cost and partly because of the hassle (see note 2).

Banks, credit unions and card issuers are ideally suited to fill this gap. At a minimum, low-cost one-click access to their credit score would provide customers with an important early warning system to stave off potentially debilitating personal finance woes (note 4).

Notes:

1. Be aware that this is a completely unscientific online poll of 200 Facebook users who say they are age 18-24 in their Facebook profile. The results should NOT be projected to the larger population. It was conducted on July 23, 2007 by Online Banking Report (see note 2).

2. For more information, see the latest Online Banking Report on Credit Monitoring.

 3. And over at another Dow Jones effort, the FiLife blog, the writers have been on a bit of a mission to pressure banks and card issuers to make credit scores freely available to customers (see post here). FiLife is a joint effort between Dow Jones and IAC, the parent of Lending Tree and GetSmart.  

4. According to the FiLife article cited above, among top-10 banks, only WaMu currently provides free access to credit scores for its credit card customers (see inset).

Note: Part one of this series can be found here.

On blogs I visit discussing social media, one ongoing debate concerns metrics. Some claim that metrics for social media projects are not meaningful; some claim that new metrics must be developed to gauge social behaviour. Some even claim that metrics aren't needed.

I believe that it is essential to have meaningful key-performance indicators in place for a social media project, as you would for any other project. You must know what success will look like to know if the project is worth repeating or not. Some of these metrics are familiar Web metrics, some are more similar to offline advertising, some are similar to PR metrics, and some are indeed brand new and hard to measure.

For ChangeEverything.ca we measure a few things that are familiar to anyone who runs a website:

• Unique visitors
• Time on site
• Referring URLs
• Natural search results
• Number of registered users
• Number of active users (need to define for yourself)

We also measure "Web 2.0" stuff:

• Our Technorati authority ranking
• The number of RSS subscribers
• Conversions of visitors to contributors (people who make it through the registration or content-creation funnels)

Like offline media, we measure how many people in our geographic region are aware of the site, just like we track awareness of our television campaigns. We also measure how many can link it back to our brand.

Like our PR, we try to measure the earned media the site has garnered for us, which has been significant, with lots of positive coverage on TV, radio and newspapers. We also keep track of what bloggers say about us. We consider a blogger writing positively about ChangeEverything.ca to be an unsolicited third-party endorsement. Happily, almost all blog posts so far have been positive, as have our earned media. It's difficult to criticize this project since most press coverage is about how the site has helped the community in some way. And that leads us to the most interesting metric by far.

Where we need new metrics is on the issue of real-world impact. This was not a metric we had in place prior to launch—honestly, it never occurred to us. But it became necessary because of activities happening in the real world (remember that?) due to the influence of the site. The first time this became obvious was after a bad snowstorm Vancouver in November 2006. The site's amazing community moderator Kate created a post called Got Hats? and asked for people to donate warm clothing and blankets to the homeless. This initiative took off and over the next few days, we estimate that more than 4,000 pieces of clothing, blankets, pillows, and, yes, hats were donated to local shelters, all via communication and organization on the site. The change occurred while snow was still on the ground, while the need was still very real, and even a matter of life and death. It was the first clue that we were onto something truly important.

There are many positive traits the site lends to the Vancity brand. ChangeEverything.ca is more than a bunch of people discussing local issues they want to change. The site has created real impact in the communities Vancity serves. Since the Got Hats? episode, we have seen the impact of the tremendous exposure a woman on the site has received for blogging in depth about her valiant attempt to give up plastics in 2007, the successful implementation of a bike share experiment in Vancouver and now a contest where people can win $1,000 to give to an organization making change for the good (appropriately called ChangeSomething).

Traditional Web metrics can't measure the human terms of this impact, and that's the beauty of social media. It spills over into people's lives, because people are in the driver's seat. We need to expand our view of key performance indicators for social media so they reflect the project's success, which now includes the true impact of these projects on our communities.

I think that explains why those of us who advocate for the appropriate use of social media are so passionate about our work.

Due to Facebook's roots as a college-only social networking site, as recently as last year you had to use a .edu email address to gain admittance, it has remained a young person's playground much longer than MySpace. However, much to the chagrin of my college-age niece and her friends (note 1), Facebook has aged rapidly this year.

As you can see in the inset, in May, comScore reported that more than half of Facebook visitors were 25 or older (see full press release here and note 2). Using this chart, we estimate the median age of a Facebook visitor was about 23 a year ago and now it's closing in on 30 (I'd guess 27 or 28 based on the comScore data). Even more frightening for the younger set: last month there were 2.6 million more unique visitors over age 35 than in the 18-24 category. We noted this trend at MySpace last year (here).

Significance for Banks
As you consider your social networking strategy, don't think it's only for the under-25 crowd. Some of your prime customers, the 30-somethings with new families, new cars, new homes, and accelerating careers, also keep in touch with friends via social networks. Refer to Online Banking Report, Social Personal Finance, for a long-term forecast and strategic options for financial institutions. Also, see our earlier post on the Top-10 Banking & Money apps on Facebook here.

Facebook Lingo Defined
For those of you new to Facebook, Ad Age ran a sidebar off its lead article this week, This 23-Year-Old has Google Sweating, explaining a few key Facebook terms:

• Minifeed: Like an RSS feed, that automatically updates everyone on your friends list of any changes you make to your profile, including removing items. This feature caused a bit of a revolt, due to privacy issues, when introduced last year. But now it seems to be an important part of the network. It's especially critical for the viral spread of new applications such as Lending Club or Chipin. Unless they opt out, every time a Facebook user adds an application to their account, all their friends are notified in the mini-feed.
• Poke: The virtual equivalent of smiling at a co-worker passing in the hallway; a way to connect with someone without the more formal protocols of email, text, or voice messaging.   
• The Wall: A place to write comments on your friends profile, or respond to comments on yours.
• Tag: Allows users to associate names with the people in the pictures they've posted. As Ad Age says, "a college grads worst nightmare when it comes to the ever-crucial job search."

Notes:

1. This summer, my niece, a college sophomore, couldn't believe that I had a Facebook account. And she was more than a bit skeptical of my claim that I was tracking the social network for my blog and newsletter. To her, it's a privileged place for her friends to communicate: uncles, aunts, and especially parents, are definitely not on the invitation list. It will be interesting to see what happens to the hip kids as the establishment invades their turf. The Wall Street Journal had a similar story this week about fellow workers and even bosses requesting to be added as friends in social networks (here).

2. comScore is reporting the demographic profile of visitors, NOT the active-user base, i.e., those that maintain profiles. Active users would undoubtedly skew younger.

Last month, we introduced the Financial Services Monthly Performance scorecard produced by Compete. Here's the second installment, summarizing the overall performance of 23 large U.S. financial institutions and lead-generation sites. For more information, including the detailed methodology and companies tracked, refer to that post (here).

The highlights:

• Financial shopping was down or flat in most categories, especially savings accounts; not surprising given the typical tax-time spike in April.
• The main exception to the trend was checking, which grew a phenomenal 31% in May compared to April. 
• The main drivers of checking account growth: Bank of America's promotion of free MyAccess Checking (see coverage here) and, to a lesser extent, Wachovia, whose Google/MSN marketing caused a major spike in traffic
• But it wasn't all rosy in checking accounts: While BofA was experiencing 25% growth in applications, ING Direct went through a typical post-launch downturn with a 50% decline in application volume
• Credit card conversions were up dramatically, with a 5% increase in application volume despite a 6% drop in shoppers, resulting in a 22% conversion ratio (see note 1) 

Note:

1. Compete revised its card applications show in the previous report. The revised number of card applications:
     March 2007: 1.57 million instead of 1.71 million
     April: 1.70 million instead of 1.88 million with 8% growth instead of 9% 

The researchers at Compete Inc. have developed a new scorecard that tracks the overall performance of 23 large financial institutions and lead-generations sites (note 1). We will publish this scorecard each month here at NetBanker and we will occasionally drill down into the data at Online Banking Report. To make it monthly scorecard easy to access, it will have its own category, <netbanker.com/compete>. 

There are a number of interesting insights from this data:

• Card applications were up 9% even though shoppers only increased 1%, helping push conversion to a healthy 21%. In this case "conversion" means they APPLIED for the product. We do not know whether they were approved or not.
• Checking applications were up 24% to 182,000, with the launch of ING Direct's Electric Orange having a role in that.
• Home-secured loan activity was up sharply from March, increasing 30% in the refi and home equity categories. Purchase loans were also up 23% month-over-month.

Notes:

1. Companies tracked: 

Credit cards: American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Discover

Deposits: Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank/Citi Direct, E-Loan, Emigrant/Emigrant Direct, HSBC/HSBC Direct, ING Direct, U.S. Bank, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo

Home Loans: Ameriquest, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Countrywide, Ditech, E-Loan, LendingTree/GetSmart, Low.com, LowerMyBills, National City, NexTag, Quicken Loans, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo

2. Definitions:

Shopper: Consumer who visited product-related content at a site in the competitive set. For the purposes of this Monthly Performance Update, a consumer can be counted for each site they visit. 

Application: Any Web form requiring the consumer to enter personal info including Social Security Number; counted only when completed.

Lead: Any Web form requiring the consumer to enter personal information, not including Social Security Number; counted only when submitted.

Conversion: = (Leads + Applications) / Shoppers

3. Methodology:

Compete's projections are supported by industry-leading data management and technology. The consumer and industry data is drawn from numerous sources and comprises the largest continuous consumer behavior database in the industry. Its proprietary data methodologies and patent-pending technology aggregate, transform and normalize this data and ensure it is representative of the entire U.S. online marketplace.

People are recruited to join Compete's member community through www.compete.com, the first website to help consumers personally benefit from clicksharing. Consumer data is also licensed from national ISPs and ASPs. This multi-source data collection methodology sets the industry standard for representative and actionable data. Members are protected by Compete's stringent privacy policy and data collection techniques that purge personally identifiable information.

It's no surprise that financial services companies are some of the largest online advertisers. It's been that way since the medium began accepting advertising in 1995. However, you might be surprised who was the number 1 financial-services advertiser in 2006: Experian with $128 million, 50% more than Microsoft's $82 million. Only five companies spent more online in 2006: Vonage, AT&T, Dell, Disney and GM.

The credit bureau and direct marketing company has expanded its direct web-based financial services presence via acquisition over the last few years and now owns prolific advertisers such as LowerMyBills.com and FreeCreditReport.com.

Most financial companies in the top-50 were in the brokerage and investment category with TD Ameritrade, Scottrade, E*Trade and Fidelity all in the $100 to $120 million category. Non-brokerages included IAC/Interactive parent of Lending Tree and GetSmart, American Express, Capital One, Bank of America, and the biggest surprise in the top-50: LoanWeb with $37 million, more than any retail bank in the country, except BofA. 

Here's the financial services companies in the top 50. Data in from TNS as cited in Online Media, Marketing, & Advertising Magazine (OMMA) last week (here). Previous NetBanker coverage is here.

Overall Rank/Company/2006 Online Advertising Expenditures

6   Experian               $128 million
9   IAC/Interactive    $123 million (includes non-financial products)
10  TD Ameritrade     $120 million
14  E*Trade                $107 million
15  Scottrade             $105 million
18  Fidelity                 $98 million
23  American Express $80 million 
25  Charles Schwab    $72 million
29  Forex Capital Markets $57 million
34  Capital One           $53 million
35  Morgan Stanley     $53 million
44  Bank of America    $43 million
48  LoanWeb               $37 million

Source: TNS, 2007

Last week we reported on the apparent traffic spike at person-to-person lender Prosper. Compete's Snapshot showed Prosper with 1 million unique visitors in March.

Based on that observation, Compete dove into the Prosper numbers and found that the domain had not yet been added to its more rigorous monitoring system, and in fact, there appeared to be some panel bias in the original March traffic numbers. Under Compete's revised assumptions, Prosper's March traffic estimate is a third less, just under 700,000 visitors, instead of 1-million plus. 

Also, Compete has now released its April estimates and found that Prosper's traffic declined 25% to 500,000 visitors. While that no longer puts Prosper at the same level as Suntrust, the lender does have considerably more visitors than the nation's 23rd largest bank, Comerica (see revised traffic chart below, Prosper is the blue line).

Preparing a table for our upcoming report on social finance, we were slogging through website traffic at Compete.com and discovered a startling statistic. In March, traffic to the person-to-person lender Prosper.com was four-fold that of January, growing to more than 1 million unique visitors. That puts it in rarefied company, approximately the same as a top-20 bank such as SunTrust, which according to Compete had just 10% more traffic in March (see chart below).

If those numbers are accurate, and they weren't driven by unsustainable events such as a a mentions in major blogs or media, Prosper may have moved past the early adopter stage, and into the more mainstream web-based financial services arena.

It appears the traffic is converting to registered users. The last time we checked, April 25, the homepage said it had 240,000 registered users. Today, it says 270,000. That's 12% growth in 15 days.

Market research is an amazing thing. You can take the same study and reach two entirely different conclusions. Or you can achieve totally different results by the way the question is worded, what multiple choice answers are provided, what questions preceded it, or even the tone or style of the interviewer. Then there are issues with how the sample was selected, online vs. phone, whether it is representative of a national audience, whether incentives were provided, etc. etc. etc.  

That's not to say that market research should be ignored. Just that you need to be careful with it. And if you make decisions based on market research, you need to understand how and when it was collected, what the exact questions were, and who underwrote the study.

Case in point: Mobile banking demand

In the past two weeks, two reliable research companies, Jupiter Research and Compete, Inc