FIGURE 24  Mobile Financial Transactions 

20.0%

Germany

4.0%

10.0%

UK 

0.8%

10.0%

France

1.3%

9.5%

Italy

1.6%

12.7%

Europe

1.8%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

Intersted even w hen it costs around EUR 5 per month

Interested only w hen it s f ree

Source: DB Research September 2002, Forrester 2002

Diffusion of B2B E Commerce 

Companies increasingly use Internet based applications for financial transactions. As the CRITO 

Global E Commerce Survey data has shown, even SMEs in Germany have adopted electronic 

funds transfer technologies to conduct bank related transactions online.

Banks themselves have created B2B digital markets in Germany for non financial firms to 

expand their role as intermediaries and to open new markets as sources of business. The creation 

of online marketplaces for SMEs enables financial institutions to offer their products and 

services closely linked to their customers, customizing financial products and increasing the 

client's loyalty. A pioneer in the area of B2B marketplaces for indirect goods was Dresdner 

Bank's Allago venture, launched in 2000 as Germany's first B2B marketplace for indirect goods. 

By aggregating their customers' procurement needs through automated processes, Allago is able 

to provide low prices ranging from office supply to IT equipment.

Although e commerce technologies made their way into European financial institutions, 

remarkable differences still remain. As Figure 25 indicates, Danish banks are leading in the field 

of online sales and procurement. Sixty six percent of Danish financial institutions sampled 

reported the active usage of online sales and 77% reported usage of e procurement. At the same 

time, banks in larger European economies such as France or Germany use these possibilities less 

often. Only 49% of German banks use online sales, while online procurement is only used by 

40%. Trailing in both e commerce activities is France, where only 26% use online sales and 31% 

use online procurement. 

While the stage of diffusion of these technologies is more or less equally developed in European 

countries, US banks implement and use online procurement much more often (75%) than online 

sales (39%). In fact, online sales in the banking sector are primarily characterized by online 

banking and brokerage services, which are based on an effective backbone funds transfer system 

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