High Street Banks Fight Back on the Internet 27/9/2000 According to the latest figures from MMXI Europe, Barclays.co.uk has topped the MMXI Business and Finance category for the first time since January 2000. Barclays.co.uk has moved from third place to pole position, ousting Egg.com from the number one spot it has enjoyed since the beginning of the year. Barclays.co.uk has increased its number of unique visitors from 460,000 in July to 641,000 in August. Lloydstsb.com, the second most popular site for UK Internet at home users, achieved 583,000 unique visitors in August. Another Barclays brand, Barclaycard.co.uk, has also seen significant growth, moving from tenth place in July to fifth place in August with 300,000 unique visitors. Other movers in this category include Directline.com, the insurance site, which has moved into the top ten for the first time. This site has seen impressive growth since it first appeared in the MMXI report in March 2000. The one new entry to the Business and Finance category in August was Rapidinsure.co.uk, which achieved 142,000 unique visitors and was ranked fifteenth. The site offers a range of online insurance options ranging from travel cover to professional indemnity. Overall, over 3.4 million UK Internet users are banking, insuring and investing online on a regular basis. This makes the category the eighth most popular category overall, attracting more visitors than news, travel and sports sites each month. Promotional activity in the sector, and the ease of changing bank accounts online to get better interest rates and benefits, has meant that this category has become one of the most competitive in the UK Internet environment. According to Mari Kim Coleman, UK Managing Director for MMXI Europe, "It’s interesting to see how the traditional banking and finance brands are performing compared to those developed specifically for the Internet. Consumers are aware of how competitive the marketplace is, and are using the convenience of the Internet to manage their finances."