The best banks in South Africa in 2024 – according to customers
DataEQ has published its 2024 South African Banking Sentiment Index, which reveals how consumers feel about the country’s big retail banks.
The index tries to determine how consumers view the country’s big retail banks by analyzing millions of social media posts over a year and categorising them by their general sentiment.
For the 2024 report, around 3.4 million social media mentions of the country’s banks were tracked from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2024.
The assessment includes Absa, African Bank, Capitec, Discovery Bank, First National Bank, Nedbank, Standard Bank, and TymeBank.
The report found that South Africa’s banking industry dipped in sentiment this year but still had the best online consumer perception out of all the countries analysed (including the UK, Kenya, and the UAE).
Their net sentiments (derived from the balance of positive and negative social media mentions) dropped from 24% in 2023 to 20% in 2024.
According to the report, this makes banking one of the “most loved” or best-perceived industries in the country. Despite the drop in net sentiment from 2023, South Africans are still generally positive about their banking experiences.
Sentiment around the big banks is higher than retail (9%), insurance (4%) and far higher than telecoms (-19%).
Best banks
Among the South African banks assessed, all but three banks dropped in net sentiment this year—although all are now in a net positive space.
Discovery Bank emerged as having the most positive sentiment score, increasing from +40% in 2023 to +47% in 2024.
“Discovery Bank’s praise ranged from inquiries and expressions of interest in bank accounts and credit cards to thanking staff for good service. Additionally, customers mentioned Vitality rewards benefits and commended the bank’s security,” DataEQ said.
Absa was the other bank to see a major climb in sentiment, now at +40% from +37% in 2023. Capitec was the only other bank to see an improvement, moving from -0.1% in 2023 to a neutral 0% in 2024.
The other banks tracked in the assessment all saw sentiment drop, although they remained positive overall.
FNB was the biggest drop, moving from the top-ranked spot in 2023 (+42%) to 27% in 2024, now ranked third.
Nedbank also saw a significant drop (+24% to +11%), while Standard Bank, TymeBank and Africanbank saw smaller declines.
The biggest drivers of positive sentiment in the banking space were customer loyalty programmes, competitive pricing of fees and products on offer.
The biggest detractors, meanwhile, were customer service (which recorded a massive -52% sentiment score) and account admin.
FNB was the only bank to achieve a positive Net Sentiment for customer service.
The biggest issues with customer service are related to slow turnaround times on queries and a lack of response from banks. Call centres and email correspondence showed steep negative sentiment scores of close to -90%.
“Although campaigns successfully bolstered industry Net Sentiment, operational issues, particularly customer service, continued to hinder overall performance and require attention,” Data EQ said.
“Downtime and technical failures continued to be a notable issue across the industry, significantly impacting customer sentiment and eroding customer trust.
“Fraud concerns, exacerbated by inadequate support and delayed resolution, continued to plague customers. This severely undermined customer confidence in the security of their banking relationships and should be a key area of focus for the banks as they move further into the digital sphere.”
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