During one of the most intense six months of site development ever witnessed in Canada, five financial services firms launched new Web banking platforms and another two are planning imminent releases, according to research conducted by Gomez Inc., the Internet Quality Measurement leader, for its Q4 2002 Canadian Internet Banker Scorecard.

TD Canada Trust retained its top ranking for the fifth consecutive scorecard, narrowly edging out Royal Bank, which was one of the five Canadian financial services firms to launch a new banking platform during the review period. Scotiabank remained in the third spot.

“TD maintained its top spot with a platform that supports all available products including mutual funds and GICs,” noted Guy van Rooyen, a Gomez senior analyst who led the research for this Scorecard. “Interactive selection tools make product choice an easy one and the ability to apply for multiple products simultaneously aids time-conscious consumers.”

According to Gomez the pace of site enhancements accelerates. With retail banking carrying the financial performance of many of banks, budgets were expanded
to allow for redesign initiatives.

Leading the charge was RBC, with a complete overhaul of its transactional banking site and President’s Choice Financial, which revamped both its secure and non-secure sites. Other firms such as HSBC enhanced their marketing sites to reflect a new navigation scheme that will be implemented throughout secure pages in the coming year.

Gomez says its research shows major Canadian financial institutions are attempting a very difficult two-step: focusing on both serving existing banking customers while attempting to migrate offline customers to the more cost-effective online channel. “In doing so, banks are hoping to reap cross-selling benefits and significant cost savings from the Web channel,” van Rooyen concluded.”

Rankings for the Q4 2002 Internet Banking Scorecard are as follows (Q1 2002 Scorecard finishes in parentheses):

  1. TD Canada Trust (1st)
  2. Royal Bank of Canada (2nd)
  3. Scotiabank (3rd)
  4. President’s Choice Financial (11th)
  5. Bank of Montreal (4th)
  6. CIBC (5th)
  7. Vancouver City Savings (6th)
  8. Citizens Bank of Canada (7th)
  9. National Bank of Canada (10th)
  10. Desjardins (12th)
  11. HSBC Bank (9th)
  12. Laurentian Bank (8th)