HDFC Bank was the most searched banking brand among Internet users in India during the period April 2011-March 2012, a report compiled by Google India has revealed.
On the insurance front, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) was the most searched brand. And in the investment (brokerage) category, it was ICICI Direct that emerged as the most searched brand.
This report combined the Google search trends in India and an independent research report of TNS Australia on the influence of the Net on the purchase decision of financial products.
Today, India has over 137 million Internet users, and a very high percentage of them are urban (99 million) with high disposable income.
With over 99 million urban Indians active on the Net, financial service providers need to adopt a new approach to engage and serve the needs of the digitally savvy customers, the Google India report has said.
“Given the reach of the Internet to high-value customers and its influence on the decision making for financial products, we believe that financial services can create significant value by innovating on the digital medium,” said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director and Vice-President Sales & Operations, Google India, on the occasion of the launch of the report. Financial services should look at adopting an ‘online first’ approach to serve the needs of the digitally savvy customers,” he said.
The total search volume for finance-related queries is growing at over 43 per cent year-on-year on Google.
The report also highlighted the increase in usage of mobile phones to surf the Internet for finance-related information, with mobile queries on Google search growing three times faster than the searches coming from desktop. Further, one out of 10 finance-related queries in India comes from the mobile.
According to the report, online medium is the most preferred source of information for Internet users with over two-thirds of them using online sources when researching for financial products.
During the online research phase, over 66 per cent of the Net users who were in the market to buy financial products changed their mind about the product and brand.
The influence of Internet research was highest for loans (75 per cent home loans, 73 per cent personal loans) followed by insurance (motor insurance 70 per cent, health insurance 70 per cent and life insurance 69 per cent).