Scandals involving the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA’s) financial planning arms appear to have done little to minimise client satisfaction with the institution, a report reveals.
The latest Roy Morgan Single Source survey found satisfaction levels among personal banking customers were equal to the 20-year high, with CBA’s clients the most satisfied of the Big Four banks.
The CBA scored a satisfaction rating of 82.5 per cent, ahead of NAB (81.8 per cent), Westpac (81.3 per cent) and ANZ (79.1 per cent).
Despite improvements in satisfaction ratings for the Big Four over the 12 months to May 2015, clients of the Teachers Mutual Banks reported being the most satisfied (94.4 per cent).
Roy Morgan Research industry communications director, Norman Morris, said the survey also found that bank customer satisfactions was lowest among the 35 to 59 age group, at 80 per cent, while the over 70s were the most satisfied (88.8 per cent).
“Over the last five years, the 70+ age group has consistently shown the highest satisfaction levels overall and across each of the four major banks,” he said.
“This segment has the highest usage of branches and although they are making increasing use of internet banking, they obviously prefer things to stay much the same. Having very few mortgages is another factor to make them a little more relaxed when dealing with their bank, but low deposit rates are likely to begin having a negative impact.
“In contrast to the 70+ group, the 35 to 59 segment have clearly had the lowest satisfaction levels of all age groups for the last five years or more. Although this group accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the value of the financial services market, their relatively low satisfaction level clearly indicates that banks need to pay them more attention and put more effort into retaining and attracting more of them. With the average value of their financial services being around a quarter of a million, this is an important segment to attract.”
