Canada Among World Leaders In Adopting On-Line Banking

TORONTO, June 21, 2000-- Canadians are among the world's most enthusiastic online banking customers, according to findings released today from a new global survey about online banking and trading from the Angus Reid Group.

"We're finding across the world that as people go online, banking is one of the commercial applications that has an immediate appeal," said Gus Schattenberg, Angus Reid Group global products vice-president. "Online banking has a following among users in the most developed Internet markets, but there are even some emergent markets where online banking is carving a niche among the leading edge of users."

Nearly one in five Canadian Internet users has already tried Internet banking, nearly one in three says they will soon and nearly everyone who has already tried it says they'll do it again, the study suggests.

The findings, drawn from interviews conducted with consumers and Internet users in Canada and 33 other countries as part of Angus Reid's The Face of the Web study of global Internet usage and habits, also suggests the United States, while having more Internet bankers overall, is adopting online banking at a slower rate.

"We've experienced exponential growth the last several years among customers moving towards our online delivery channels. In fact, we're now very close to enrolling our millionth on-line customer and we expect that growth to continue," said Tom Wolf, Royal Bank's senior vice-president for e-commerce. "This study confirms our own experience that Canadians are world leaders in adopting the Internet for electronic banking."

Approximately 31 per cent of Canadian Internet users said they were "very likely" to bank online over the next 12 months, ranking eighth among 30 countries, just behind urban Brazil and Belgium (34 per cent each) and tied with Australia. The U.S. ranked fourteenth at 21 per cent, just ahead of Turkey (20 per cent) and just behind Spain (24 per cent). Leading the pack were urban South Africa (46 per cent) and Germany (42 per cent). Less enthused about online banking were Internet users in Egypt and Russia (2 per cent each).

The survey also found a somewhat more moderate attraction to online stock trading and other Internet-based investing services. About one in ten Canadian Internet users said they were "very likely" to trade or make other investments online in the near future. The figure was similar among Internet users in the United States. For online stock trading, South Korea (18 per cent) , Singapore (14 per cent) and Germany (14 per cent) ranked highest among the Internet users in the countries surveyed.

The Face of the Web is the most comprehensive international study of consumers and the Internet ever done, based on a total of 28,374 interviews with Internet users in 30 countries and general consumers in 34 countries in November and December of 1999 and January 2000.

Established in 1979, the Angus Reid Group is among the world's leading research companies, providing a full array of marketing and social research services to the private and public sectors. Founded by Dr. Angus Reid, the Angus Reid Group has conducted extensive research in 80 countries and 40 languages and serves clients around the world through 10 offices and 300 full-time and 800 part-time staff.

Royal Bank of Canada (RY) is a diversified global financial services group and a leading provider of personal and commercial banking, investment and trust services, insurance, corporate and investment banking, on-line banking and transaction-based services including custody. The group's main business units include Royal Bank, RBC Dominion Securities, Royal Investment Services, RBC Insurance and Global Integrated Solutions. The group has 49,000 employees who serve 10 million personal, business and public sector customers in 30 countries. For more information, visit Royal Bank's Web site at www.royalbank.com

For more information, contact:

Gus Schattenberg
Vice President
Angus Reid Group
Vancouver
(604) 893-1606

Jeffrey Keay
Royal Bank
Toronto
416-974-5506