Most satisfied banking customers in SA

Columinate’s third annual SITEisfaction survey amongst South Africa’s Internet banking users reveals which of SA’s banks hits all the right buttons with customers.

According to the survey, Capitec shot past FNB to take the stop spot, scoring a satisfaction rate of 71%, versus 2013 top dog’s 69%.

Absa was again ranked as the worst bank, with a satisfaction score of 39%, below Nedbank (48%) and Standard Bank (56%)

The study was conducted using an online survey between 15 – 22 March, and 1,385 individuals were surveyed.

“We measure the ‘big 5’ banks in South Africa, namely Absa, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank and Standard Bank, against a number of key drivers.”

“These include ease of use, information and quality, trust, innovation, device flexibility, reasonable banking fees, and communication and assurance,” explained Henk Pretorius, Columinate CEO.

“This year Capitec scored the highest points in each category except for device flexibility, making them the overall winner of the survey,” said Pretorius.

For the first time, the use of apps was also investigated, though Standand Bank and Capitec were not taken into account in this segment.

In terms of mobile app satisfaction scores, FNB took first position with 81%, followed by Absa at 79% and Nedbank was in third place with 77%.

Online trends

The survey also analysed consumer trends that have emerged in the internet banking sphere over the last year:

29% of users share their internet banking account with another person, which in most cases is their spouse or partner (69%), followed by siblings (21%).

Laptop or desktop computers remain the most preferred channel from which to access internet banking (96%), however the usage of smartphones and tablet devices is on the rise.

The most common internet banking features used by customers remain making payments (96%) and general account management (93%).

The overall targets of internet banking fraud have increased from 54% to 62% in the last year, and the actual victims of this fraud increased from 10% to 19% between 2013 and 2014.