Banks ‘generally’ unscathed by RC in NZ

Roy Morgan Research’s latest findings from its single source survey, which includes interviews with over 6,000 banking and finance consumers per annum, has revealed that customer satisfaction with banks in New Zealand improved in the 12 months to 31 December 2018, from 78.2 per cent in the previous year to 79.1 per cent.

According to Roy Morgan, the overall increase was a result of eight of the nine largest banks showing improved satisfaction, with TSB the biggest improver, up 6.1 per cent, followed by SBS Bank (up 5 per cent), Rabobank (up 4.2 per cent) and The Co-operative Bank (up 3.9 per cent).

TSB Bank also has the highest customer satisfaction of the nine largest New Zealand banks (88.5 per cent), followed by Kiwibank (84.6 per cent), The Co-operative bank (81.7 per cent), BNZ (80.4 per cent) and Rabobank (79.5 per cent).

However, the banks performing below the market average (79.1 per cent) were ASB (78.1 per cent), ANZ (77.1 per cent), Westpac (76.5 per cent) and SBS Bank (75.1 per cent).

Despite reporting below average results, customer satisfaction improved for all banks except ANZ, which reported a year-on-year decline of 1.9 per cent.

Reflecting on the data, Norman Morris, industry communications director at Roy Morgan, claimed that Australia’s banking royal commission has not sparked a deterioration in satisfaction among customers in New Zealand, despite the annual drop reported among Australian customers.

“While the finance royal commission in Australia has had a negative impact on bank customer satisfaction in Australia, particularly the big four, it appears that this has not generally been felt by the Australian banks operating in New Zealand,” Mr Morris said.

“The ANZ was the only one of the big four to show a decline in satisfaction in both countries over the last year.”

He continued: “Satisfaction with New Zealand banks is generally positive and improving, as evidenced by the fact that over the last year, eight of the nine largest banks showed increased satisfaction.

“The end result was to lift overall satisfaction by 0.9 per cent to 79.1 per cent.”

In comparison, the latest Roy Morgan survey of Australian customers revealed that satisfaction with Australian banks reported at 78.2 per cent as at 31 December 2018, 0.9 per cent lower than in New Zealand.

Mr Morris said that while satisfaction improved from November 2018 (78.1 per cent), the positive result would be short-lived.

Mr Morris added that he expected the release of Commissioner Kenneth Hayne’s final report to “represent a major challenge to maintain satisfaction levels”, with the report expected to recap “problem areas” and “receive widespread publicity”.

[Related: Bank satisfaction recovery could be short-lived]