About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leader in online competitive intelligence. Contact Hitwise to maximize your online marketing programs.

Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

« The role of news aggregators in the UK | The cult of Robert Peston and BBC blogs »

Irish banks benefit as UK online banking traffic reaches an all time high

October 06, 2008

The financial turbulence of the last couple of weeks has resulted in a surge in traffic to online banking sites. UK Internet traffic to websites in our Banks and Financial Institutions category increased by 9.2% last week, reaching an all time high as a result.

UK Internet traffic to bank websites 2005 2006 2007 2008 chart.png

The Irish government (along with the Greek, Danish and (almost) German ones) has caused controversy around Europe by announcing that it will guarantee all of the country’s banking deposits. Opponents claim that the move gives banks in Ireland an unfair competitive advantage and will result in savers moving their money across the Irish Sea. A BBC survey of small business seems to contradict this theory: the results show that 91.6% of the 312 respondents would not consider moving deposits to Ireland because of the guarantee. However, our data paints a slightly different picture, implying that UK savers are at least considering the Irish option.

Like the banking category as a whole, UK Internet visits to a custom category of 13 Irish banking sites also reached a new high last week (see chart below). However traffic to Irish banks increased by 35.7% last week, almost four times the 9.2% increase for the category as a whole. The biggest recipient was Ulster Bank, which received almost 70% of visits, followed by the Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank (AIB).

UK Internet traffic to irish bank websites following deposit guarantee scheme chart.png

The most recent search term variations report for ‘irish banks’ implies that while some people are concerned about the financial situation, others see money making opportunities. The basic term ‘irish banks’ was one of the fastest moving search terms in the UK last week, along with the big Irish banking brand names. Elsewhere terms such as ‘irish banks interest rates’, ‘irish banks in the uk’, ‘list of irish banks’ and ‘deposit money irish banks’ were clearly popular with potential savers. On the other hand, people searching for terms like ‘irish banks in trouble’ and ‘irish banks at risk’ are clearly sitting on the other side of the financial fence.

list of irish banks search terms interest rates deposit money trouble risk.png