(Singapore) – Fully 391,000 of Singapore’s “regular” internet users bank online, according to recent analysis.Representing over 52 percent of the estimated 750,000 regular internet surfers in the country up from 45 percent a year ago, the AC Nielsen Consult study is based on a sample of 24,000 internet users carried out September last.
The commonest online banking application is proving to be online bill payments, with 30-40 percent of regular internet users also viewing account balances, viewing recent transactions and transferring funds between accounts online.
A quarter of all these regular Singaporean internet users now bank online at least once a week, with 5,000 doing so daily – a level that has made online banking more popular than online shopping.
Importantly, the study also discovered that of the 359,000 regular internet users who are not yet banking online, 74 percent (265,000) are willing to do so.
The Singapore online banking market is dominated by DBS/POSB with close to 70 percent and a 2nd group of online banks, including UOB, OCBC, Citibank, and OUB, constituting about a further quarter.
Interestingly, Singapore also displays high levels of multi-usage, with close to 50 percent of Singaporean internet bankers having multiple online banking relationships.