CBA’s satisfaction lead in jeopardy

The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) is on the verge of losing the top spot for customer satisfaction, months after calls for a Royal Commission into its one of its planning businesses, a snapshot shows.

While CBA still holds the retail banking customer satisfaction lead, on 81.1 per cent, it's being closely trailed by Westpac on 81 per cent, according to the Roy Morgan single source survey.

CBA's satisfaction score peaked in April, at 82.6 per cent, before two months before the senate handed down its report into its investigated planning businesses, Financial Wisdom and Commonwealth Financial Planning.

Since then, its rating has dropped 1.5 percentage points, while Westpac's score has grown 2.4 per cent and ANZ's 1.6 per cent, significantly closing in the gap between the big four.

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The limited variance shows that no big bank truly has a competitive advantage in the Australian market, according to Roy Morgan industry communications director, Norman Morris.

"The fact that the big four banks are now only separated by 1.3 per cent points in their overall satisfaction ratings means that none of them have a clear competitive market advantage compared to the 2004 to 2009 period where the ANZ was well ahead," he said.

"The challenge for the banks is to create a clear satisfaction and advocacy leadership positioning among the higher value customers or they will face increased competition from specialised banks and other financial institutions that will focus solely on these lucrative segments."