[Toronto, CANADA]- Canadians are among the world’s most enthusiastic online banking customers, according to a global survey about online banking and trading from the Angus Reid Group and Royal Bank.
Nearly one in five Canadian Internet users has already tried Internet banking, nearly one in three says they will soon and nearly everyone who has already tried it says they’ll do it again, the study reports.
Approximately 31 percent of Canadian Internet users said they were “very likely” to bank online over the next 12 months, ranking eighth among 30 countries, just behind urban Brazil and Belgium (34 percent each) and tied with Australia. The U.S. ranked fourteenth at 21 percent, just ahead of Turkey (20 percent) and just behind Spain (24 percent). Leading the pack were urban South Africa (46 percent) and Germany (42 percent). Less enthused about online banking were Internet users in Egypt and Russia (2 percent each).
The survey also found a more moderate attraction to online stock trading and other Internet-based investing services. About one in ten Canadian Internet users said they were “very likely” to trade or make other investments online in the near future. The figure was similar among Internet users in the United States. For online stock trading, South Korea (18 percent), Singapore (14 percent) and Germany (14 percent) ranked highest among the Internet users in the countries surveyed.
The Face of the Web is based on a total of 28,374 interviews with Internet users in 30 countries and general consumers in 34 countries in November and December of 1999 and January 2000.
