世論 What Japan Thinks

This is quite a surprising set of results for me, but perhaps one factor is a relative reluctance to using credit cards online, although I would have thought banks would be more of a worry? Have a look at these results published on japan.internet.com from a survey conducted by Marsh Inc into online banking.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 28th of October 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% were in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve always meant to look into online banking – actually, all my UK money is in a bank that is online (talking of HSBC, they finally opened branches in Japan, but the one in Kobe, at least, is after the top end, people with 10 million yen or more to invest – in Japan, but never quite got round to it. I once checked my SMBC balance online, but that’s the extent of it!

Research results

This questionnaire started off rather confusingly by saying that from the original sample, 84.3%, or 254 people, were using online banking, but then in the next question 15.1% say they don’t use any banks’ services! There doesn’t seem to be a differentiation between online-only banks and bricks-and-mortar banks with online services, so that isn’t the reason for the strange data. Let’s just start from the 254 people who were asked the following question, and ignore where the other 46 went!

Q1: How many banks’ online banking services do you use? (Sample size=254)

One bank	35.8%
Two banks	23.4%
Three banks	14.4%
Four banks	4.3%
Five banks	3.7%
Six or more banks	3.3%
No banks	15.1%

Q2: About how many times per month do you use online banking services? (Sample size=254)

Less than once a month	26.4%
Once or twice a month	31.1%
Three to five times a month	24.4%
Six to ten times a month	11.8%
Eleven to fifteen times a month	2.4%
Sixteen to twenty times a month	2.4%
Twenty-one or more times a month	1.6%

Q3: What kinds of banking services do you use online? (Sample size=254, multiple answer)

Check deposits and payments	73.6%
Checking current balance	69.7%
Paying for mail order, etc	37.0%
Paying for auctions	37.0%
Transfer to securities account	20.5%
Applying for time deposits, etc	13.4%
Money transfer	10.2%
Transfer to savings	9.4%
Other	3.5%