NTIA · United States · November 2023
Online financial services in the U.S.
Who uses financial services online, and what does the survey include?
Internet users aged 15+ · Prior six months · Assisted analysis checked 2026-10-09
of U.S. internet users aged 15+ were reported as using the internet for financial services such as banking, investing, paying bills or sending money to other people in NTIA’s November 2023 survey.
The activity sequence asks about at least occasional use during the prior six months. One Yes/No question covers these services together, so this percentage cannot be read as an online-banking-only rate or a count of payment-app customers.
People · U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized internet users aged 15+ · November 2023 · Not all residents, households or all adults aged 18+
Source: NTIA / U.S. Census Bureau Analyze Table, Nov 2023 / financeUser / adultInternetUser, usProp. Original FINANC question, questionnaire page 8; six-month context, page 6. Social Usage converts the source proportion to a percentage.
Use is highest in the 25–44 age group
The source point estimate was 85.4% for internet users aged 25–44, compared with 69.7% for ages 15–24, 77.8% for ages 45–64 and 63.2% for ages 65+.
U.S. internet users within each age band · November 2023 · Prior six months
Source: NTIA aggregate CSV, row 768, age1524 / age2544 / age4564 / age65p Prop columns. Exact estimates and source standard errors.
The difference between ages 25–44 and 65+ is 22.2 percentage points, calculated from the unrounded estimates. The youngest band is not the highest: it includes both teenagers and adults. Re-labelling it as “teens” or “adults under 25” would change the population being described.
These are separate age groups observed in one survey, not the same people followed as they grow older. The table does not measure financial knowledge, trust, reasons for using a service or whether another household member handles someone’s bills. It cannot explain the age pattern.
Participation increases across the family-income bands
The reported share was 59.3% in families with annual income under $25,000 and 85.4% in families with income of $100,000 or more. The descriptive difference is 26.0 percentage points.
U.S. internet users aged 15+ within each annual family-income band · November 2023
Source: NTIA aggregate CSV, row 768, incomeU25 / income2549 / income5074 / income7599 / income100p Prop columns. Bars show participation within a group, not that group’s share of financial-service users.
Family income classifies the person; it does not make the observation a count of families. It is also different from personal salary, household income or wealth. Nonusers of the internet are outside each denominator, so these estimates do not measure the full population’s access to digital financial services.
The comparison is unadjusted for age, education and other characteristics. It does not show that income caused the difference. The published age and income margins cannot identify how many lower-income older adults used these services, or support an age-by-income filter.
Banking, bills and money transfers share one question
“[Do you/Does NAME] use the Internet for financial services such as online banking, investing, paying bills, or sending money to other people using services like CashApp, Venmo, or PayPal? (If needed) Examples include using your bank’s website or app, and paying a credit card or utility bill online.”
Source: FINANC, November 2023 questionnaire, PDF page 150 / Attachment 8, page 8. USEINT, PDF page 148, supplies the past-six-month, at-least-occasional context and random selection of one internet user aged 15+ per household. Proxy answers are permitted.
The table’s short label mentions banking, investing and paying bills. The original question also includes sending money to other people. Someone could qualify through a money transfer without using a bank’s website; these aggregate cells do not reveal which service or combination they used.
CashApp, Venmo and PayPal are examples in the question, not separately measured audiences. The same applies to the bank website or app in the optional prompt. The survey supplies no market share, registered-account count, daily active users, transaction volume or balance for any provider.
A lower participation percentage is not an “unbanked” rate. The question measures online activity, not whether people own an account or can access services offline. It also does not identify investment ownership, financial distress or satisfaction with a service.
For other online activities, see shopping and consumer services and messaging and social-network use. Their audiences can overlap with financial-service users; the activity percentages cannot be added into a unique audience or multiplied to estimate a shared audience.
Exact figures and sampling uncertainty
Read the national, age and family-income estimates
| Group | Share (%) | Source SE (pp) | Source column |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 76.1327 | 0.2772 | usProp |
| 15–24 | 69.6522 | 0.9256 | age1524Prop |
| 25–44 | 85.4499 | 0.3851 | age2544Prop |
| 45–64 | 77.7944 | 0.4333 | age4564Prop |
| 65+ | 63.2261 | 0.5910 | age65pProp |
| Under $25,000 | 59.3127 | 0.9332 | incomeU25Prop |
| $25,000–49,999 | 68.3377 | 0.6439 | income2549Prop |
| $50,000–74,999 | 76.4837 | 0.6075 | income5074Prop |
| $75,000–99,999 | 80.4628 | 0.6417 | income7599Prop |
| $100,000 or more | 85.3604 | 0.3595 | income100pProp |
NTIA reports proportions and proportion standard errors to six decimal places. We multiply both by 100: the resulting four-decimal figures preserve the published precision. An SE is not a confidence interval or margin of error. These selected aggregate cells supply no item sample sizes or confidence intervals.
The national estimate is separately weighted, not an unweighted average of the group percentages. Age and family income are different classifications. Do not add these rows or treat them as ten parts of a whole. Under-15 activity cells are missing and are not converted to zero.
Source: NTIA Analyze Table, Nov 2023 / financeUser / adultInternetUser; each named Prop column and its corresponding PropSE column.
Methods and reproducibility
Survey population, selection and weighting
Fieldwork ran 12–18 November 2023. The Census Current Population Survey supplement covers the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the 50 states and District of Columbia. For this activity sequence it randomly selects one internet user aged 15+ per household, skipping the sequence when all internet users are under 15. A household member may answer for the selected person.
The original tabulation assigns financeUser to adultInternetUser and defines it as PEFINANC = 1 for the selected respondent. Despite the universe’s internal name, eligibility starts at age 15, not 18. The random-respondent weight is PWPRMWGT; the official tabulator uses 160 replicate weights with successive difference replication for sampling errors. Age bands use PRTAGE and annual family-income bands use HEFAMINC.
Social Usage uses the published aggregates and processes no individual responses. Census editing and hot-deck imputation, nonresponse, reporting and coverage error can affect the estimates beyond their sampling SEs. This page calculates no adjusted effect, significance test or uncertainty for the difference between two groups.
Sources: technical documentation, PDF pages 7, 142, 148 and 150; November 2023 code, lines 16/26, 33/36, 39/41 and 98; official random-respondent tabulation, lines 330–368.
Reproduce the conversions and descriptive differences
Select Nov 2023 / financeUser / adultInternetUser in the original CSV. It is row 768 including the header in our retained version; use the variable, wave and universe if a later file changes row positions.
National proportion: 0.761327 × 100 = 76.1327%. Source SE: 0.002772 × 100 = 0.2772 percentage points.
- Ages 25–44 minus 65+: 85.4499 − 63.2261 = 22.2238 percentage points.
- $100,000 or more minus under $25,000: 85.3604 − 59.3127 = 26.0477 percentage points.
These Social Usage calculations subtract full-precision percentages before rounding. They describe groups in one survey, not percent growth over time. Separate source SEs do not provide the covariance needed to calculate the uncertainty of either gap.
Retained CSV SHA-256: c9b744849847775cf9419c8565553830b9fa374f62bbd674d4f22888521fd10a. Analysis: ntia-finance-2026-10-09-v1. Original source, questionnaire, tabulation code, selected cells, formulas and this page are bound to an assisted review.
Source dates, historical limits and reuse
- Data period
- November 2023 · Fieldwork 12–18 November
- Source publication
- 2024-06-06 · 2023 Data Explorer update
- Retained statistical retrieval
- 2026-10-01 (UTC)
- Assisted analysis review
- 2026-10-09
November 2023 is the latest financeUser wave in the retained table. This page selects that wave; it does not extrapolate a current-year value. Earlier rows require a separate review of question wording, populations and weighting before a historical comparison is appropriate.
Selected federal aggregate facts and original attributed charts/tables can be used in this ad-supported publication under the retained rights basis. This page offers no new data download, image export or embed. Financial services are outside the existing digital-behavior explorer’s five-activity selection and downloads.
U.S. federal statistical work; 17 U.S.C. § 105; original rights verification 2026-10-01. Source: National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Internet Use Survey, November 2023; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey. Selection and presentation by SocialUsage; no agency endorsement implied.
The review is assisted source and calculation checking, not independent human editorial approval. No source artwork, agency logo or individual response is reproduced.