Homepage Roy Morgan Research newsroom

Consumers More Satisfied with Banks but Business Left Behind

Announcement posted by Roy Morgan Research 25 Jul 2011

Roy Morgan Research
22/07/2011
Consumer satisfaction with the big four banks continued its upward trend in June with a 1.2% point increase over May to reach 74.8%, the second highest level achieved over the last 15 years. Business Bank Customers, on the other hand, are well behind with only 61.6% satisfied and over 200,000 being either ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ dissatisfied with their bank. These are the latest findings from the June Roy Morgan Research Consumer and Business Banking Satisfaction Reports.

The main reason for the continued improvement in consumer satisfaction is the banks’ mortgage customers who appear to have overcome their adverse reaction to last year’s rate increase which has been helped by no further rate rises and intense market competition.Over the last 12 months, the home loan customers of the big four increased their satisfaction by 3% points compared to only 1.1% points for non home loan customers. The biggest improvement amongst home loan customers came from Westpac (+10.6% points), followed by NAB (+4.6% points), ANZ (+3.2% points) and CBA (-2.5% points).


Consumer Banking Satisfaction – Big 4

Purchase the latest detailed Roy Morgan Consumer Banking Satisfaction Report
Source: Roy Morgan Research Consumer Satisfaction Report - June 2011. Customer Satisfaction is based on customers who are Very or Fairly Satisfied. Average 6 months sample = 26,400.


Over the last 12 months the biggest improvers amongst the big four were Westpac (+5.4% points) and NAB (+3.5% points). The NAB appears to be closing in on the leadership of the ANZ with a 2.2% point increase over the last month compared to the ANZ with a 0.8% point improvement.The NAB’s improvement over the month was particularly strong for their non home loan customers (+2.4% points) which is possibly as a result of their emphasis on cutting fees across many areas.

Although we have seen some marginal improvement in business customer satisfaction over the last six months, they all rate their banks much lower than personal banking customers do.

In the case of the NAB it is rated 15.9% points lower by it’s business customers (59.1%), Westpac 12.9% points lower (63.1%), CBA 12.8% points lower (60.7%) and ANZ 12.7% points lower (63.8%). There are many reasons for this much lower rating and they mainly revolve around issues such as a poor understanding by the banks of their customers industry and business, lack of regular contact and poor knowledge of products and services related to them. Pricing, interest rates and availability of finance obviously also plays a major part.


Comparison of Consumer and Business Satisfaction

Purchase the latest detailed Roy Morgan Business Banking Satisfaction Report
Source: Roy Morgan Research Consumer Satisfaction Report – June 2011 and Roy Morgan Research Business Satisfaction Report - June 2011. Satisfaction is based on customers are Very or Fairly Satisfied. Sample = 26,183 for Consumer and 6,732 for Business.


Norman Morris, Industry Communications Director, Roy Morgan Research says:

“Competition amongst the big four banks in terms of customer satisfaction has continued to intensify with the gap between the best of the big four (ANZ ) and the lowest (CBA) now being only 3 % points which is close to the narrowest it has been over the last 10 years.It is difficult to see that any of the big four can claim any real difference from each other compared to the gap that exists between them as a group (average satisfaction 74.8%) and the regionals such as Bendigo (87.3%), Suncorp (83.4%), Bankwest (82.9%) and Bank of Queensland (81.6%). It will be interesting to see if Westpac can emulate this strong performance with the Bank of Melbourne.

“It is also important for banks to consider their personal and business customers together because they are not mutually exclusive as the two million business customers are also personal customers with the result that a poor performance in one segment will be likely to impact on the other. With over 200,000 business customers classified as dissatisfied, they represent fertile ground for switching.”


Purchase theRoy Morgan Consumer Banking Satisfaction Report.

This report provides a uniquely independent and reliable measure of customer satisfaction performance for the major financial institutions in Australia. Collected continuously from an annual sample of over 50,000 Australians aged 14 or above, the report monitors satisfaction not just for short but also long term that includes ten years trended data at an overall and Main Financial Institution level.

Purchase the Roy Morgan Business Banking Satisfaction Report.

This reportprovides a uniquely independent and reliable measure of businesses satisfaction with their financial institutions. Based on an annual sample in excess of 13,000 businesses ranging from micro to large businesses (companies with an annual turnover of $50 million and over), the report monitors satisfaction for overall business satisfaction, as well as those who do and do not consider that institution to be their Main Financial Institution.


For more details contact:

info@roymorganonlinestore.com