Google India: Online Research Influences Over 66% Product Applications For Financial Services

According to a Google India report on financial service industry, 7 out of 10 Internet users change their minds about the products and brand when buying financial products.

Internet research influences loans the highest – 75% on home loans and 73% on personal loans. The next products that are influenced the most are insurance with 70% on health insurance, 70% on motor insurance, and 69% on life insurance.

Finance related queries have gone beyond 43% year-on-year of the total search volume. Desktop banking searches reached over 73% of the overall searches and are growing over at a rate of 45% per year.

In addition, the report also emphasized the increase in mobile phones usage in searching for finance related information on the internet. In fact, it is growing 3 times faster than those coming from desktop computers.

1 out of 10 finance related queries in India come from mobile. Banking queries from mobile have grown to 85%, investment-related queries to 105%, and insurance queries to 75%.

Over 99 million Indian users are now active on the internet. In order to engage and serve the needs of the digital-savvy consumers, financial services need a new approach.

The favoured source of information when it comes to financial products is through the internet with over two-thirds of internet users are taking advantage of. Thus, the internet plays an important role of the purchasing process.

Over 42% of users say they are more aware of products and brands while 58% claim that the internet helped them on their initial research. Over 62% use it for extensive research before purchasing.

Although final purchases are done offline, internet research influenced 2 in every 3 instances with 24% applying or buying online, 70% applying online, and 38% buying offline yet are influenced online.

Key Stats

Over 99 million Indians are online
7 out of 10 of internet users change their mind before buying a financial product
Internet research influence on the financial service industry: 75% on home loans, 73% on personal loans, 70% on health insurance, 70% on motor insurance, and 69% on life insurance
Finance related queries have increased to over 43% of the total search volume
Desktop banking searches have reached more than 73% of the total search volume and growing at a rate of 45%
Mobile searches is growing three times faster than desktop searches
1 in 10 finance related searches have come from mobile
Banking queries from mobile have grown to 85%, investment-related queries to 105%, and insurance queries to 75%
42% of users say that the internet helped them become more aware of a product or brand
58% of users say that the internet has helped them with their initial research
62% of users use the internet for extensive research
24% of users use the internet in buying or applying financial products or services
70% of users apply offline
38% of users buy offline yet are influenced online

Rajan Anandan, Managing Director & VP Sales & Operations, Google India: “We believe that financial services can create significant value by innovating on the digital medium and adopting an ‘online first’ approach to serve the needs of the digitally savvy customers.”

Source: dqindia.com

Covered by my Visible Banking Team

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