Online banking is expected to continue to grow moderately over the next few years, and it also will become increasingly hard to justify measuring that channel as a separate entity, according to a recent TowerGroup report. TowerGroup estimates that slightly over 24% of U.S. households currently bank online, representing approximately 40% of all U.S. households with Internet access. The financial services think firm expects online banking to grow moderately at a compound annual growth rate of 8.7%, reaching 36.8% household penetration by the end of 2007. The firm's analysts say they believe that online banking has matured to the point that it should be viewed as a standard delivery channel, and that ROI calculations not only tend not to fully reflect the impact of this channel on customer profitability but instead can minimize the importance of a cohesive, multichannel delivery strategy.