Egg comes first for UK online bankers

One in three home internet users in the UK has visited a financial services website - with internet bank Egg the most popular destination.

Of the UK's 9.9 million internet users, 3.6 million (36.6 per cent) logged on to banking, mortgage, insurance and investment sites in May, according to the latest figures from internet audience research company Net Value.

The total is nearly a million visitors more than were visiting financial services websites at the start of the year.

Egg was visited by around one in 11 of all UK surfers - some 881,100 unique visitors. Next comes Barclays with 445,500 users, and nationwide.co.uk is third with 306,900. Internet banks Marbles, Smile and First-e are notable by their absence from the top 10.

Marbles had a reach of 1.3 per cent of the population (approximately 130,000 visitors), but rivals Smile and First-e both had a reach of less than one per cent for May.

The leading non-bank site, and fourth overall, is investment centre Interactive Investor International (iii.co.uk) which attracted nearly a quarter of a million surfers, who stayed for a lengthy average of 55 minutes each, the longest of all financial sites surveyed.

Whereas UK visitors head for their bank first and foremost, the most popular sites in France and Germany are those of each country's stock exchanges. The UK stock exchange barely registers in the ratings. Overall, UK finance sites have managed to obtain a narrowly higher reach than their French counterparts, but still trail Germany, where 43.3 per cent (4.3 million) of surfers regularly log on to them.