Newsletter 12/2009
Banking on the internet
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No other nations apart from the Swedes and Dutch use online banking services to the extent that Finns do. E-banking has been a matter of course for Finns since the 1990s, and at the beginning of the twenty-first century the Internet overtook automatic telling machines as the most common channel for paying bills.
“E-banking services are easy and efficient for consumers to use because banking affairs can be handled regardless of time or place at a time that is most convenient for them,” stresses Kai Koskela, Vice President eChannels at the OP-Pohjola Group.
The most commonly used online services are the various routine ones, such as transaction and statement queries, paying bills and orders in shares. Online services also play a central role in loan and credit applications.
“Bank branches focus on the more advanced forms of customer service instead of routine matters. Most of the customers that come to a branch today have booked a time.”
Paperless service
Koskela says that e-invoices still account for a low percentage of all consumer invoices but they are showing strong growth. During 2009 the so-called critical mass was reached in the number of suppliers sending e-bills and of e-bill customers.
E-banking has been a matter of course for Finns for a long time.
About 20 per cent of the OP-Pohjala Group’s online customers accept e-invoices at this moment. If the growth remains this strong, it is thought that more e-invoices than paper invoices will be sent during the first half of the next decade.
“It is likely that banking services will become completely paperless in ten years,” Koskea predicts.
Bigger role for mobile phone
In the future customers will be expanding the use of online services from routine tasks to more complicated services, as the services become more personal and intelligent. In addition to the present self-service, the personal service will extend to the internet through new interactive services such as online negotiation.
According to Koskela, the probable trend will feature the use of mobile phones for handling banking affairs. “It will be possible to put the Mobile Internet into effect during the next decade with the development of terminal devices and services and a change in customer behaviour.
“In bank services this will mean the handling of simple routine services, such as e-invoices and orders in shares. In the future it will be possible for the mobile phone to act as a tool for identification and payment.”
Confidence in banks at a high level
Finnish banks use an identification solution that is based on a user ID, a password and an identification number that is never constant. A special Finnish feature is that customers can use their online bank identification numbers widely when accessing public management services and service providers.
“The banks are constantly investing in developing data security solutions so that it will be safe to use their online services. As a result, Finns’ confidence in banks and their online services is at an extremely high level,” Koskela states.
“The security of the services is greatly affected by the customers’ own actions, careful use of the identification numbers and making sure their own computer is virus-free. This requires constant instruction and training on the part of the banks.”
