People are spending longer checking their internet bank accounts than on social networking, cahoot has revealed.
It's official: Britons prefer checking their bank accounts to checking their Facebook accounts.
In these credit crunch-affected times, research suggests that many web surfers are preferring online banking to social networking in order to get a better grip on their personal finances.
The study, from online bank cahoot, found that almost two in three of the entire population (38 million) had used internet banking. Of this group, 71 per cent were found to have increased their online access to their accounts over the past 12 months. It is thought that the continuing effects of the global financial crisis, coupled with rising food and fuel costs, has led to this increase in hi-tech budgeting.
As a whole, cahoot found that Britons spend a collective three billion hours each year on online banking, while using popular social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook takes up just 2.7 billion hours. The figures mean that each person is using the financial sites for an average of 1.5 hours per week.
Matthew Timms, director at cahoot, commented: "While you might be forgiven for thinking that the internet's biggest draw is social networking sites, nowadays it's actually online banking. Indeed, the credit crunch is making Britons far more conscious about keeping in control of their finances. As a result we're flocking to internet banking, where we can instantly access and manage our finances at a time and location of our choice as well as pick up some of the best rates on the market."
