Online banking usage in Belgium 2006-2018, by age

Roughly seven out of ten Belgian adults used online banking (probably via laptop or desktop) in 2018, despite elderly people using this service less often. For instance, 89 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds in Belgium used internet banking at least once in the three months prior to this survey. This was a difference of roughly 15 percentage points compared to 2009. Furthermore, there were approximately 13 million subscriptions of online banking in Belgium in 2018, the highest number reached since 2006.

Are Belgians using mobile banking?

In 2018, there were seven million mobile banking subscriptions in Belgium. The country specifically distinguishes between the overall use of banking through the Internet (in Flemish: abonnementen internetbankieren, in French: d'abonnements à la banque par internet) and the more specific number of mobile banking subscriptions (in Flemish: abonnementen mobiel bankieren, in French: d'abonnements à la banque mobile). In Belgium, the KBC banking apps (KBC Mobile and KBC Touch) had the most daily active users (DAU) in 2018. However, the Easy Banking app (from BNP Paribas Fortis) and the ING Smart Banking app (from ING Belgium) were also widely popular.

Online challenger banks: bunq

One online-only bank that saw some daily use in Belgium in 2019 was bunq, a Dutch mobile banking provider that offered accounts to Belgian residents. This company created an app that connects online banking with features as can be found in an application like WhatsApp. In 2018, the online bank made a loss of over ten million euros.