November 19, 2001—Jupiter Media Metrix, a leader in Internet and new technology analysis and measurement, recently reported that there is no link between the recent anthrax scares and consumer adoption of electronic billing in the United States. Jupiter’s analysis of unique visitors to the nation’s largest online billing Web sites indicates that there is no noticeable increase in traffic that could be attributed to September 11 or the anthrax threats.
The report reveals that unique visitors to online billing sites—including American Express and Discover Financial Services—increased by an average of 2.8 percent during each of the last three weeks of October, compared to a 2.5 percent average weekly growth increase over the last three months. According to Jupiter analysts, this difference is not statistically significant and should be expected as more consumers embrace online financial applications including online billing, and as financial institutions increase their promotion of such services.
Online bill payment grew 12 percent over 2000 levels, according to Jupiter. Although the firm predicts that online billing will more than double in 2002, it adds, “mainstream consumers won’t rapidly adopt these services until they are more complete than what is offered today.”
