UK banks lag behind Europe in online services

There's little appetite for on-line banking in the UK either among banks or their customers. What's more, UK banks are apathetic about any possible fall-out from not offering on-line services and can't even be bothered to ask their customers if they're interesting in electronic banking or not. These are just some of the damning conclusions published today by French IT company, Bull, which claims that UK on-line banking lags behind its European counterparts. Undertaken by independent research company Infratest Burke InCom, Bull found while 70 per cent of UK banks believed electronic banking would increase revenue, few were prepared to do anything about it. In what's believed to be the largest and most in-depth study of its kind, Bull found that less than half of all UK banks currently offered on-line banking. "The fact that the UK is lagging behind the rest of Europe in providing electronic banking services should be worrying UK financial organisations," said Stephen Meyler, marketing director at Bull. "If I was a bank who hadn't thought about this I'd be worried about the future," he said. But the research has riled one leading UK bank and goes against its own experience of the online marketplace. "I do not support this view at all," said Nick Johnson, manager of NatWest Online. "We have strong demand from our customers for online banking and have trialed many different technologies over the years. "Bearing in mind the quality and range of products and services on offer, I would say the UK was a leader in Europe," he said. Bull's research was published on the same day it launched its new online banking product iQ Banking. ®