GTB, FCMB, Citibank, others emerge best banks in 2019

GTBank Plc, FCMB Plc, and Citibank Plc have been rated best among others in the order of customer experience in 2019. The latest Nigeria Banking Industry Expectation Survey released by KPMG disclosed.

The trio top the chart across the three segments captured in the year. The segments are retail, Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and wholesale banking.

KPMG stated that the banks had never been under pressure to perform as competition heightened to improve on customer service experience. The survey covered 25,466 retail customers, 3,045 SMEs and 369 commercial/corporate organisations.

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, GTBank (74.2), Zenith (73.4), Access (72.1), Sterling (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 UBA were the biggest movers in 2019, coming 3rd, 5th, and 7th respectively.

According to the report, two banks recorded actual increases in their CX scores, and this reflects higher customer expectations and rapidly evolving customer expectations.

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 FCMB (74.4), Fidelity Bank (74.2), Access (73.7), Zenith (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 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.

Meanwhile, Citibank, GTBank, Standard Chartered, Zenith, and Access Bank 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.

Banks rank high in integrity

The 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.