Web Technologies Used in the Commercial Banks in Finland

The publication presents the results of empirical research on web technologies used in the home pages of the Finland commercial banks authorized under Finland Legislation to carry on commercial banking business and supervised by the Finland Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA). The home pages of 9 commercial banks were studied. Our survey reveals details about the proportion of the web technologies used in the respective web sites. The mean home page size is around 2.5 MB (±3.7 SD, median - 1.3) and the share of the images is around 41%. The share of the other web components is as follows: JavaScript programs - around 35%, CSS files - 10%, Font files - 7%. The size of the main HTML file is only 7% of the size of whole web page. The mean total number of requests that the web browser makes in order to display the home page is around 64 separate requests - 23 requests for images, 19 for JavaScript, 7 for CSS files, 6 for Font files. Only one of the surveyed web sites is using HTTP/2. The rest are using as minimum HTTP 1.1. Near 56% of the sites are using Symantec SSL certificates and again near 56% are using 2 years long certificates.