Europe embraces online banking

There will be 66.2 million active online bank accounts in Europe by 2003, up from 26.1 million in 2000, according to Datamonitor. The strongest growth is expected in southern Europe and in France, where take up of online banking services has been slower than in other parts of Europe. Sweden currently leads the way, as 44 percent of its Internet users bank online, and Germany is second with 34 percent of users conducting banking transactions on the Internet. Spain is next with 29 percent, followed by France (20 percent) and the UK (16 percent). The European average is 31 percent while the US figure is only 18 percent. Datamonitor says the main players in the European online banking market are the Scandinavian bank NBH, followed by Egg, BNP-Paribas, Barclays, and Spanish bank BSCH.