Interactive Television in European Banking

Predicts strong growth of banking services on interactive TV in Europe, but will not overtake Internet as dominant e-channel

In a new report published today entitled "Interactive Television in European Banking", Celent Communications examines the burgeoning market for TV-based banking. An increasing number of banks, primarily in the United Kingdom and in France, have started to offer their services, including account balances, funds transfers, and bill payment via their customer's TV remote controls.

The rapid adoption of interactive television in Europe is propelling more and more financial institutions to offer these kinds of services. Currently, already one third of the top 20 European banks offer some form of interactive TV banking, with more to follow shortly.

"While banking via iTV is gaining in popularity, we do not expect to see the number of iTV banking users challenge the number of Internet banking users in the foreseeable future. By 2004, we expect that there will be over 10 million users of iTV-based banking services in Europe, compared with over 30 million users of Internet banking in the European market" according to Isabella Fonseca, analyst at Celent Communications.

The report includes a review of the iTV services offered by Cr馘it Agricole in France, as well as Abbey National and The Woolwich in Great Britain.

A Table of Contents is available online.

of Celent Communication's Retail Banking research service can download the report electronically by clicking on the icon to the left.