The Gartner Group's Dataquest unit recently found that while the number of consumers who bank online will increase 300% over the next five years, many of those customers will continue to mail their payment checks, rather than pay their bills online.
Last year, 7 million households chose to bank online. In 2004, that number will be 24.2 million. Just 57% of these households will pay their bills online and a major reason for the hesitancy is security.
George Barton, senior industry analyst of Dataquest's "The Interactive Home: Financial Services U.S.'' program said, "To promote growth in these online activities, banks and other financial institutions face two primary challenges. They need to widen the overall appeal of online banking and overcome consumer unease about control of the online bill paying process.''
For now, banks are trying to get their customers in the habit of paying bills online. To that end, they are waiving online bank fees and offering free account viewing. According to Barto, "Once it becomes familiar behavior, consumers will have less trouble making the transition from account viewing to transferring money among accounts and then to bill paying.''
Until then, keep that checkbook handy!
