Two in three Romanians using at least one digital service

Two in three Romanian consumers are currently using at least one digital service, and 62% of them are using their mobile phone as the main device to access this type of service, according findings of "Digital Sentiment in Romania" survey published Tuesday by McKinsey & Company.

The findings show that during the COVID-19 lockdown the number of digitally accessed services doubled.

Online banking and telecommunications services were the most popular, with 38 percent of Romanians stating that they had used at least one digital service from these two sectors during the COVID-19 lockdown. Some 19 percent of respondents said that they used them for the first time ever during the lockdown.

However, only 14 percent of Romanians engaged digitally with insurance or public sector services.

The survey also finds that the use of digital services is now significant across all age groups and geographies, up to 76% compared to the early lockdown.

During the lockdown, the digital adoption rate has grown significantly for consumers between 45-64 years old, too, a group whose increased age-related medical risk creates a strong incentive to use digital services. In addition, 65 percent of Romanians living in small cities and rural areas used at least one digital service in the past six months.

Mobile phones are the main device used for accessing online services for 62 percent of Romanians.

Compared with the countries in Central and Eastern Europe with the highest levels of digital engagement, Romania shows significant growth potential for online engagement in most industries. Thus, banking, insurance and the public sector could potentially increase digital engagement by a factor of 1.7 to 2.6, while utilities and grocery could increase engagement by a factor of 1.2.

"To tap into this potential, companies should go beyond digitizing processes and make digital services simpler and more accessible, improving the user experience. They need to focus on fulfilling specific customer needs - even if this requires building a new product rather than digitizing an existing product (often created for a now outdated paradigm). To achieve digital excellence at scale for their services, companies across the board need to focus on two key factors: recruiting those rare individuals with a broad range of digital skills, and building a modern, largely traditional vendors-independent technological system," according to the survey.

The "Digital Sentiment in Romania" survey was conducted in May 2020 and included more than 1,200 respondents. Results have been adjusted so that figures reflect the overall Romanian population aged 18-80.