KPMG has released the 2019 Nigeria Banking Industry Expectation Survey, which assesses the quality of customer experience provided by Nigerian banks.
According to the report of the multinational professional services firm, the survey covered 25,466 retail customers, 3,045 SMEs and 369 commercial/corporate organisations.
Retail Segment
KPMG stated that there had been a two-year decline in overall customer experience (CX) performance in the retail segment with nearly all the rated banks falling below the industry average.
Retail banking refers to the provision of financial services by banks to individual customers (private individuals), rather than corporations, local and central governments, and other banks.
- Under the retail segment: Guaranty Trust Bank [GTBank] (74.2); Zenith Bank (73.4); Access Bank (72.1); Sterling Bank (72.1) and First Bank (71.8) were rated the best banks in terms of customer experience in 2019.
- Specifically, GTBank replaces Zenith Bank as the top-rated bank in the latest ranking.
- Sterling Bank, First Bank, and United Bank for Africa (UBA) were the biggest movers in 2019, coming 3rd, 5th, and 7th respectively.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) Segment
Under the SME segment, there were lower levels of overall satisfaction for SMEs, as analysis of performance in the segment discloses some levels of dynamism.
- The top 5 performers in the SME segment in 2019 are: First City Monument Bank [FCMB] (74.4); Fidelity Bank (74.2); Access Bank (73.7); Zenith Bank (73.3) and Ecobank (73.3).
- According to the report, Fidelity Bank and Ecobank made the greatest improvements as both banks moved up more than four places into the top five banks.
Wholesale/Corporate Segment
Wholesale banking refers to banking services that are offered just to other institutional customers, corporate organizations with strong balance sheets, government agencies and so on. In the wholesale segment, there was also a dip in overall CX scores compared to the previous year’s performance.
- Citibank (77.8), GTBank (72.6), Standard Chartered Bank (72.1), Zenith Bank (71.7) and Access Bank (68.8) ranked top in the segment.
- A further breakdown shows that Citibank and GTBank maintain top spots from the previous year, with new entrants (Standard Chartered and Access Bank) making top five positions.
Integrity
The 2019 Nigeria Banking Industry Expectation survey was conducted based on over 3 million detailed customer evaluations, anchored on six pillars of experience excellence. The six pillars include: personalisation, resolution, integrity, time and effort, expectations and empathy.
According to KPMG, leading banks demonstrated mastery of these pillars and were outstanding at all of them. However, when assessed, integrity (defined as being trustworthy and engendering trust) is the pillar where Nigerian banks performed the strongest.
