Recent data from the European Union indicates that 29 percent of individuals aged 16 to 74 residing in the 27 EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Croatia engage in online banking activities and use the internet to interact with public authorities or search for health-related information. The data refers to internet activities carried out by EU citizens during Q1 2008.

The survey shows that top three states when it comes to the number of online banking users are Norway, where 75 percent of internet users carried out such activities, closely followed by Finland with 72 percent and the Netherlands with 69 percent. The countries where online banking is least popular among internet users are Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, where online banking is taken up by 1 percent, 2 percent and 5 percent of internet users, respectively.

Furthermore, according to the survey around 25 percent of EU Internet users ordered goods and services online, while an additional 15 percent leveraged online information to search and apply for jobs.

The “Internet usage in 2008 Households and individuals” report was published by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities.