With a total of over 13.000 active Internet users both at work and at home, BVA TFC Research, which is a subsidiary that was created between BVA and eMarket Strategies, represents the first online panel that studies the behaviour of Internet users on the French market.

Based on the information we collected through this panel, we are happy to present you an exclusive analysis concerning the time when Internet users got connected to banking sites for January 2001.

First of all, we noticed that 22.3% of the total number of visits on banking sites is concentrated on the time range that goes from 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

This mainly corresponds to the time when people consult their bank account online and it also proves how the Internet, for some purposes, has become a "natural" tool for many of its users.

Checking one's bank account in the morning is one of the new habits that will deeply modify relationships between banks and their customers.

Being able to check one's bank account online represents undoubtedly an enormous asset when compared to offline practices: permanent access (when bank agencies are only open a few hours a day, which proves highly inconvenient, especially for working people), discretion and time saving.

As a result, customers are slowly getting used to having a dematerialised relationship with their banks through the web. Such evolution should in the medium run wholly satisfy banks that are one hundred per cent Internet-centred since they would be able to concentrate on people who are already used to manage their bank account online.

It appears that people mainly access their bank services in the first part of the day, since we can notice another peak between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (6.61%).

A third peak is to be observed between 5 p.m and 7 p.m. (13.32%), which mainly corresponds to the end of a day's work.

But the phenomenon that consists in surfing the web for personal reasons at the end of a day's work does not only apply to finance sites... We've already noticed that this type of behaviour also concerns eTourism sites.

It is interesting to notice that the time ranging from 9 a.m.and 7 p.m. represents 66.23% of the whole connection time, which means that banking sites, just as most of the sites with a strong transactional added value (eCommerce sites, eTourism sites, Broking on line sites, etc), are frequently accessed from work.

And yet, even though we notice a high drop in the visits that are made after 7 p.m., we still notice that banking sites remain rather popular in the evening as nearly a quarter of the visits (23.14%) that are made on finance sites are distributed between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m.

This last figure proves that customers are keen on having a permanent access to their accounts via the Internet, apart from the agencies opening hours or the availability of their customer advisers.

These figures also constitute another precious indicator, which helps us to better understand the communication policy chosen by online banks. Indeed, what time is better than the one when customers access their bank accounts via the Internet?

Just like on TV, media schemes are calculated according to the number of potential viewers, their centres of interest and their "availability" according to the time when they get to hear commercials. I think that the Internet media plans should also take into account the time when the targeted people are online.

And this criteria proves all the more important online as people get much more easily into a direct marketing logic.

The net surfer that will be "caught" at the right time, for instance right after he's been consulting his bank account online, will be all the more tempted to visit a competing site…if he's just been checking how much charges or commissions his present bank just took away from his own account!

In any case, if your aim for the month of January 2001 was to "attract" Internet users who resort to bank services, you had better do it in the morning and on the sites that are accessed from work.

Source : BVA TFC Research / eMarket Strategies