Canadians are more likely than Americans to bank, trade their mutual funds and pay bills online according to a survey from Boston-based Forrester Research that examined customer attitudes and behaviours.

Of those online today, the survey suggests that more than two-thirds of Canadians, or 67%, use the Internet for banking transactions like checking balances, paying bills, and making account transfers. In the United States, less than half of consumers using the Internet (46%) — make use of their banks’ online offerings.

While Canadians are more likely to bank and trade their mutual funds online, Americans are slightly more likely to trade stocks online, although the gap is not so pronounced. Of those, only 13% of Canadians and 14% of Americans say they have ever traded stock on the Internet.

Among investors online, the survey’s authors say Canadians are 20% less likely to trade stocks than their American counterparts, but 50% more likely to trade mutual funds.

A previous study of the online behaviour, attitudes and investing habits of Canadian investors done by Gomez Canada flagged online mutual fund investing as the next major area of growth. The study, released in October 2001, said more than 900,000 or 16% of Canadian online investors will purchase mutual funds online in the next year.

The Forrester survey also finds Canadians are twice as likely to pay bills through their banks while American prefer to pay at biller-direct sites.

The Forrester data comes from an excerpt of the Personal Finance May 2002 Data Overview, which examines customer attitudes and behaviours based on large-scale survey data.

http://www.forrester.com