As many as 7 per cent of account holders in the country are using the Internet for banking transactions, while branch banking has fallen by a full 15 percentage points, according to a report by global management consultancy McKinsey & Company.

"Use of the Internet for banking has seen a massive rise in the 2010-11 survey, taking the overall number of bank consumers who use the Net to close 7 per cent of the total bank account holders -- a seven-fold jump since 2007 -- even as for the first time in the past 13 years, branch banking has come down by a full 15 percentage points during the same period," McKinsey & Company India partner and head of its retail banking services Renny Thomas said.

Thomas was talking to reporters after releasing a McKinsey India personal financial services survey 2011 here today. The percentage of online users of banking transactions was just about 1 per cent in the agency's 2007 survey, Thomas added.

The survey is the result of one-on-ones with nearly 20,000 Asians covering the mass, mass-affluent and the affluent consumers across 13 markets, of which the largest survey pool was from India at 5,000 because of the sheer diversity of this market, Thomas said.

The survey is based on the number of times in a week respondents visited bank branches or used Internet for carrying out transactions.

In 2007, the number of times Indian respondents visited bank branch for doing transactions was 0.58 while the same in 2011 was 0.49, showing a fall of 15 percentage points.

Branch usage has dropped by 27 per cent on an average across Asia between 2007 and 2011, while usage of the Internet and mobile banking have increased by 28 per cent and 83 per cent, respectively, says the survey, which was also conducted across the Asia-Pacific region.

When it comes to digital banking, the survey says, "India leads growth in Asia in mobile and Internet usage for banking.

While there was a 15 percent decline in branch usage here, the growth in usage of the Internet and mobile banking has almost tripled."