Busiest day on record for Bank of Ireland Digital Channels

Thursday 21st December brings highest volume of customer activity online

The busiest day on record for Bank of Ireland’s digital channels was Thursday 21st December with over 900,000 logins across networks including the mobile app, 365 Online and Business Online, which is used by business customers. The dominant channel for logins was the mobile app, which accounted for more than half of all logins. December 21st also saw a new record for Bank of Ireland point of sale (POS), with 1.25million transactions conducted.

December produced very high demand across many Bank of Ireland services and the run-up to Christmas Day surpassed Black Friday activity. Even Christmas Day saw a significant level of digital activity, with close to 200,000 logins and almost 500 customer requests online including changes of address, current account and personal loan applications, travel notifications and deposit withdrawal requests.

Christmas Day activity peaked across desktop/mobile/tablet at midday and the top countries for logins were Ireland, UK, Spain, USA and Australia. The busiest hours on BankofIreland.com over the Christmas period were 11am on the 27th (3,770 sessions), midday on St. Stephen’s Day (1,830 sessions) and Christmas Eve (1,508 sessions) and 8pm on Christmas Day (888 sessions). The quietest time this year was 5am on Christmas Day, which still had 109 sessions.

Point of sale and ATM activity remained high through the month, with over 6.25million Bank of Ireland transactions over the weekend 15th – 17th December, and a record volume of LATM (Lodgement ATM) activity on Monday 18th December.

Discussing the high level of digital activity over the Christmas period, Garvan Callan, Director, Strategy, Digital & Innovation, Bank of Ireland said: “Three in four of our customers are now digitally active and this Christmas has seen a number of record-breaking milestones across our channels. Thursday December 21st was the busiest day on record for our digital channels with 919,000 logins, almost three times the number of logins we had on St Stephen’s Day. The same day brought a record volume of point of sale transactions, so it’s clearly one of the busiest shopping days over the Christmas period. We also experienced an increase in online product applications during the Christmas period this year, as more and more customers chose to conduct their day-to-day banking digitally.

“While quieter than other days, even Christmas Day brought significant online banking activity. While some of this may relate to activating banking apps on new mobile phones and checking balances in advance of Christmas sales, other customers are transacting and conducting product applications online. With consumer activity continuing to evolve, we are committed to delivering user-friendly digital solutions for our customers to conduct their banking at a time and location that works for them.”

Bank of Ireland has 673k active mobile users and saw a 60% reduction in paper instructions in H1 2017, reducing paper usage across processing and operations. 65% of new product sales are through direct and digital channels with one in two completed digitally. The bank’s current account proposition was voted ‘Best Customer Facing Technology’ at the 2017 Global Retail Banking awards and customers can also apply online for products including personal or business loans, overdrafts, investment products or credit cards.