New gTLDs for the Finance: 2019 in Review

There are domain name extensions (not "domain names") for the financial industry: I call them "Financial new gTLDs". These are operated by their respective Registry: for example, the ".FUND" new gTLD is also called a "the dotFund Registry" and it is the sole legal entity allowed to create domain names ending in ".fund" (instead of ".com") for accredited Registrars to sell them to the public. In 2019, I took snapshots of these registries' evolution at the end of each month and wrote down the numbers.

The 2019 tab from my report shows a lot of "red" (it means that domain name registration figures decrease) but this is because red is noticed first. Financial new gTLDs have lots of Trademarks as clients and many Banks are listed. For this reason, this report is one of the longest from my 20 monthly reports. This is what I noticed on a list of 87 financial new gTLDs:

1. I listed 51 dotBrand (".BRAND") new gTLDs:
1. the .DVAG new gTLD ended the year with more than 2,000 domain names registered!
2. Eight of these .BRANDs have more than 100 domain names created, this is a lot for a personal use!
3. Two have between 500 and 1,000 domains created:
1. .ALLFINANZ
2. .CREDITUNION
4. Five have between 100 and 500 domains created.
5. Eighteen have between 10 and 100.
6. Twelve did not register any new domain name since January 2019 and still have one registered.
7. The .EVERBANK new gTLD was withdrawn during the year. Note that some other financial new gTLDs were withdrawn but they still appear as "Delegated" on the official ICANN website (the .NADEX new gTLD for example).
8. One is an IDN new gTLD: .工行 (xn--estv75g).
9. Some dotBrands did not register more domain names in 2019:
1. .DISCOVER with 101 domain name created
2. .SHRIRAM (28)
3. .BARCLAYCARD (24)
4. .AMERICANEXPRESS (8)
5. .NETBANK (5)
6. .COMMBANK (4)
7. .CITI (4)
8. .HDFCBANK (2)
9. The TLDs with one single registration are not added here.
10. Two were withdrawn long ago: the .CASHBACKBONUS and .JPMORGANCHASE
2. Four new gTLDs exist in their singular AND plural version (but I think I already wrote that in the past):
1. .ACCOUNTANT and .ACCOUNTANTS
2. .LOAN and .LOANS
3. .MARKET and .MARKETS
4. .DEAL and .DEALS
3. Only 10 generic new gTLDs have more than 10,000 domain name registrations and number one on that list has just above 27,000.
4. Two have "unbelievable" numbers to read:
1. the .BID new gTLD had 209,700 registrations in January. It ends the year with less than 28,000.
2. the .LOAN new gTLD had... 2,806,800 (yes: two million) in January. It ends the year with a little more than 24,000.
5. Only one generic Top-Level Domain maintained its registration level from January to December: the .TAX new gTLD which ended the year with 7,450 registrations. Oh... The .TRUST new gTLD registered one more domain name during the year and went from 51 to 52 registrations.

Read the full report here.

Coming: "New gTLDs for the Automobile and Cars: 2019 in Review"

Finance and new gTLDs: blue or red?

There is a lot happening in Finance "and" new gTLDs. In fact this report on monthly domain name registration volumes is one of the longest from the Jovenet Consulting new gTLD reports. One of the reasons for this is that lots of Trademarks in the finance applied for their .BRAND new gTLD. The top of the report clearly is about generic domain name extensions dedicated to selling domain names but almost two thirds of it is about .BRANDs. Surprisingly, half of the .BRAND TLDs...are just not being used.

54 .BRANDS and 34 generics
Some Trademarks have put their personalized domain names in use and have registered more than 100 for them: .CREDITUNION (500 domain names) - .DVAG (200 of them) .BNPPARIBAS - .CITIC - .BLOOMBERG - .BRADESCO and .BARCLAYS

Between 10 and 100 .BRAND domains
15 financial .BRAND Trademarks have registered between 10 and 100 of their domain names. The interesting thing about this is that the volume of these registrations has kept increasing: a sign that .BRANDs are finding adoption?

No news from Boston Ivy
The registry in charge of operating .FOREX - .MARKETS - .TRADING - .CFD - .SPREADBETTING and .BROKER shows small signs of development and such niche TLDs with their low number of domain names registered seem to find difficulties to recruit registrars. Note that the price of these domains has already been lowered but...have all solutions been considered? Not sure.

Abandoned .TRUST new gTLD?
The .TRUST new gTLD received no more registrations on a one year period of time and sticked to 51 domains from January to December 2017. We found interesting titles used such as a "Domain Assured Portal" which could be an attractive service for owners of domain names at high risk of being stolen, wrongly transferred or..."and more".

Generics: blue or red?
What about generic financial new gTLDs? These are the domain name extensions dedicated to selling financial domains through the network of accredited Registrars: have they been successful in terms of volumes of domains registered?

First of all, it is important to note that 10 of them kept receiving registrations month after month and never lost one single registration (and when it was, more other domains were registered). This is a good sign for a registry (when it does not cheat). The extensions concerned are: .MARKET - .FUND - .CASH - .CAPITAL - .EXCHANGE - .FINANCE - .CREDIT - .FINANCIAL - .INVESTMENTS and .MARKETS

Then we have extensions which behaved strangely: the .LOAN gained 1,3 million registrations during the year. This is a lot and there is a story behind this...of course. It lost 1,8 million domains between June and July (...) The funny thing is that the plural version of this same TLD - the .LOANS new gTLD - gained registrations too but only has 3,584 registrations in total. Strange, isn't it?

Some TLDs lost (a lot of) registrations: The .BID new gTLD lost 90,000 registrations between January and December and .ACCOUNTANT lost 39,000 (its plural version - .ACCOUNTANTS - only has 2,573...in total. The .TRADE Top-Level domain lost 2,500 domains.

Finally, only five TLDs like .DIAMONDS lost registrations between January and December and 22 .BRAND extensions sticked to one single registration in one year.

Check the full report here.