US Study Finds Telephone Is Preferred Channel For Buying Investment Products

by Philip Morton, InvestorsOffshore.com

06 April 2001

A recent Harris Interactive Financial Landscape study in the US, which evaluates consumers' financial relationships across retail banking, investment and insurance products, has concluded that in the last quarter the telephone has surpassed the online channel as the most common channel used by brokerage customers for purchasing a number of investment products. The survey was conducted online among more than 2,900 consumers who have a brokerage account in the US.

The study did find that certain products are still widely purchased over the Internet. These include margin accounts, stocks, stock options, initial public offerings (IPOs) and money market accounts. But although brokerage customers are using the online channel for a number of product purchases, telephone is currently the preferred method for purchasing, for instance, corporate bonds, US treasury or municipal bonds, and mutual funds.

Lisa Fader, director of financial services research at Harris Interactive, who conducted the survey, commented: 'The resurgence in the use of the telephone over the last quarter as the preferred method of purchasing investment products has been substantial. Perhaps the overall decline in confidence within today's marketplace has caused investors to turn to their brokers rather than rely on their own judgement over the Internet while making important investment decisions.'

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