Baby Boom generation in the online banking market in Europe

Abstract

The Baby Boom generation, i.e. persons born between 1944 and 1963, constitutes over one fifth of the total European population, which makes it a significant segment of consumers. The important feature of this generation is their high trust in the banking system, which is one of the conditions for adapting technological changes in the areaof banking service distribution, including the acceptance of the internet banking (IB). In 2018, the average of 37.1% Baby Boomers used IB, which demonstrates that this distribution channel still has a large potential for development. There are distinct differences among European states regarding the scope of the internet usage for banking services by persons aged 55–74. The aim of this study is to define the structure of IB market for the European Baby Boom generation according to social and demographical characteristics (education and gender). The study is based on Eurostat’s corresponding data for 2018.The analysis of the structure of the IB market has been based on the gender and the level of education of its users, adopting one of the methods of cluster analysis, the Ward method. The analysis demonstrates that Nordic countries and the Netherlands are the European leaders in terms of IB usage among Baby Boomers, whereas the lowest percentage of IB usage among Baby Boomers has been observed in the Balkan and Southern Europe-an countries, e.g. Turkey and Italy. Among the analysed social and demographic characteristics, education differentiates the selected groups of states to a larger extent than gender.