Second life Of Online Banks Part.I

In their early days, online banks were intended to attract a large clientele by proposing a new model of bank: Account Management possible at any time and from any computer connected to the Internet, with an offer "discount". Using the Internet as the only interface between the bank and the customer had in fact enable substantial savings, both in terms of personnel but also capital assets. Thus, online banks offer rates were very aggressive on a range of services equivalent to that of a traditional bank. However, they failed to offer prices low enough to stand out, to forget the absence of physical relationship between the customer and the banker, and succeed in capturing some of the customers used to a classical model.

Weakened by the explosion of the Internet bubble in 2000, online banks could not withstand the intensity of competition in the banking sector, especially as traditional banks, although lagging behind the banks line, developed or acquired equivalent services. The interest of a pure player in online banking has therefore been questioned since it was possible to combine customer relationship in a network, and maximum flexibility via the Internet. The only entities that have managed to sustain their existence are those that are backed by a bank, maintaining an independent identity. This allowed them to diversify their services, taking advantage of operational know-how and organizational parent companies and thus offer very attractive prices.