But for the rest there are still big gaps

Two years ago, Pascal Donnais, marketing director of Fortuneo, swore top and hard that we would never see his specialist online brokerage site develop a banking, as supply was then its arch-rival Boursorama. Lost sentence. Last week, one who is now President of the Executive Board announced the diversification of the broker to... the Bank online. That has happened "The behavior of the clients on the Internet and their expectations have changed, says the leader." In addition, our Credit Mutuel Arkéa shareholder was clearly a development objective of the Bank on-line.

2007 has constituted a turning point in the use of the Web in the traditional banks. A Précepta study, this is this year that the number of users of online accounts exploded with growth to two digits of the operations. Aware that a new heading has to be crossed, most banks have redefined their strategies and launched new projects (see opposite), trying to forget the failures of the beginning of the 2000s.

The classic transactional site is of course an essential device. But for the rest, there are still big gaps. The biggest differentiation lies in the offer, including real estate credit and insurance. On the forced passage whether or not the client agencies to identify. It is also the presence or not of a dedicated Advisor and the number of paper documents that the new client must send in the purchase of a product or opening an account. 100 Internet is absolutely not generalized.

20,000 customers for e.LCL

E.LCL is probably one of the more advanced models, offering full banking services online since September. "Since the opening of e.LCL, we have much worked our offer, our process and technology to make them more sustainable." "Being able to open a significant volume of accounts per day, to manage and correctly process a daily relationship remote application of the time", says Michel Ganzin, Director of networks outside agencies in LCL. Created in 2000, e.LCL claims still only 20,000 clients but his pace rises to 30 since the beginning of the year.

BNP Paribas, for its part, has come on this concept later with his Net. She had already tried an unsuccessful adventure with Bank direct in the past (sold in 2002 to AXA). "We are launching today because it was expected that the market gets a certain critical size that users become mature to open an account directly on the Internet," explains Virginia Fauvel, Director e-business at BNP Paribas. With a nuance however to LCL, a customer NetAgence will have exactly the same rates and the same offer in Agency, even on the real estate credit and savings. The client may at any time go to Agency see a Counsellor, but only if he wishes.

"Click, phone and mortar."

Actor still a little apart, the Credit Agricole Ile-de-France did not wish to participate in the development of BforBank, the private bank online Green Bank. "Other regional banks, we do not have a leading position in our market and we took enter the Internet distribution earlier than the other, to develop"click, phone and mortar"faster", says Anthony Lever, Director of marketing and communication of the Credit Agricole Ile-de-France. The site for access to the Bank is today particularly developed but does not propose to mortgage.

Remains a finding common to all of the players: "the relevance of the multichannel model passes through the sharing of information between the different channels." "All of the management of customer relationship (CRM) system must know what the client on the Internet and what he asks," concludes Franck Devignes, responsible for canals Internet and mobile at BNP Paribas. A condition of future success.