Internet banking in Czech Republic on the rise
The number of Czechs using internet banking has steeply increased over the past ten years. While in 2008, only about 12 percent of Czechs made their payments via the internet, last year it was 57 percent, the Czech News Agency reported on Wednesday, citing data released by the European Statistical Office, Eurostat.
Among EU member states, internet banking is most common in Denmark, where it is used by 90 percent of people aged 16 to 74, and the Netherlands with 89 percent, followed by other Scandinavian countries. The lowest numbers of internet banking users were registered in Bulgaria (5%) and Romania (7%).
The Czech Republic climbed from 20-24th spot in 2007 to 12-13th spot in 2017, surpassing Germany with 56 percent of internet banking users.
According to Eurostat data, internet banking is particularly popular among 25 to 34 year-olds, with 68 percent using the facility. The use of internet banking tends to increase in line with the education level of the users.
There are currently eight million bank clients in the Czech Republic who have access to internet banking, but only about fifty percent use it on regular terms.
The Czech Republic’s biggest bank Česká spořitelna currently registers 1.5 million users of their internet banking system. According to Filip Zeman, head of the bank’s digital products and services department, the recently launched digital system called George is used five times more frequently than the old system.
By the end of the year, all of the Czech Republic’s internet banking clients will be transferred to digital banking.
