世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

goo Research recently carried out a massive opinion poll to investigate how people in Japan use internet banking.In cooperation with NTT Resonance and Mitsubishi Research Institute they surveyed 43,074 members of the goo Research internet monitor group and ordinary goo users. This public poll was conducted for two weeks in the middle of October, with 56.0% of the respondents female. 2.2% were in their teens, 23.3% in their twenties, 40.4% in their thirties, 23.8% in their forties, 7.8% in their fifties, 2.1% in their sixties, and just 0.4% over seventy.

I am unsure whether or not PayPal counts as a net-only bank, or even if it, or an equivalent system, is popular is Japan. However, it seems internet-only banks are surprisingly popular (although since this is an internet-based survey there is some built-in bias), but if bricks and mortar banks offered transaction fee discounts for online usage, perhaps they could seriously erode the net-only banks’ customer base. It’s interesting, given that one of Koizumi’s pledges has been to do away with silly rules for the sake of it, that it seems that net banks cannot be used for utilities payments or lottery ticket purchase. My bank back home, first direct, has internet-based services, but I still prefer the telephone (and with Skype it’s ridiculously cheap!) for all my business.

This is another large survey that I will publish over two days.

Q1: How do you use internet banking? (Sample size=43,074)

	All	Male	Female
Use both a normal bank’s internet service and an internet-only bank	39.0%	44.8%	34.4%
Use a normal bank’s internet service only	13.2%	14.0%	12.5%
Use an internet-only bank’s internet	23.1%	21.7%	24.1%
Don’t use either kind of internet banking service	24.8%	19.4%	29.0%

Q2: What internet banking products and services do you use? (Multiple answer)

	Normal bank (N=22,469)	Net-only bank (N=26,720)
Net payment settlement (shopping, auctions, etc)	52.7%	74.7%
Other payments	78.8%	55.5%
Fixed-term savings	35.1%	16.4%
Foreign savings	12.4%	6.2%
Investment trusts	8.5%	2.9%
Home or other loans	14.5%	1.1%
Money orders	5.4%	2.9%
Other	11.3%	10.6%

Q3: How satisified are you with the internet services of your bank?

	Normal bank (N=22,469)	Net-only bank (N=26,720)
Extremely satisfied	18.5%	22.7%
Rather satisfied	54.8%	52.9%
Neither satisified nor dissatisfied	19.4%	19.4%
A bit dissatisfied	6.1%	4.3%
Very dissatisfied	1.2%	0.6%

Q4: For those who do not use a net-only bank, or who are dissatisfied with one, why is this? (Sample size=7,011, multiple answer)

Don’t want to create more bank accounts	37.7%
Uneasy about security aspect of net-only banks	36.2%
Awkward to deposit money into or withdraw money from a net-only bank	29.9%
Because there’s no pass book with a net-only bank, it’s difficult to manage money movements	23.7%
Awkward to manage login ID and password	19.3%
Uneasy because cannot deal face-to-face with the staff	13.3%
Net-only banks are unfamiliar	7.4%
Cannot automatically pay utilities bills from net-only banks	6.8%
Net-only banks don’t really deal with financial services	2.7%
Didn’t know net-only banks existed	1.6%
Other	10.9%

Q5: For those who do not use a normal bank’s net banking service, or who are dissatisfied with one, why is this? (Sample size=11,590, multiple answer)

Normal bank’s counter and ATM are sufficient	43.2%
Transaction charges are just the same as at ATMs, so not really any merit in using	39.9%
Conditions for obtaining favourable transaction charge rates are too severe	24.3%
Unsure about security (eg account number or personal data leakage)	16.2%
Awkward to manage login ID and password	12.7%
I didn’t know normal banks offered net-based services	9.0%
Web-based explanations of financial products and insufficient and difficult to understand	7.7%
Other	8.3%

Q6: For those who do not use any net banking, why is this? (Sample size=10,669, multiple answer)

Danger of leakage of account number or personal information over the net	50.6%
Using ATMs is enough	44.9%
Don’t feel there is really any merit in using the internet	25.0%
Don’t want to create more bank accounts	19.4%
Seems difficult to do banking over the internet	11.0%
Don’t really use my bank account anyway	10.9%
Didn’t know internet banking existed	5.2%
Want advice, etc when meeting at the teller counter	2.4%
Other	6.8%

[part 1] [part 2]