Banks starting to irritate business

One of the surprising features of banking customer satisfaction surveys last year was that business customers remained happy with their banks. While retail customers expressed their displeasure over higher interest rates, business customers appeared to shrug off concerns about rates, credit rationing and the economy.

Not any more. The latest TNS Business Banking Customer Satisfaction Report, published yesterday, shows a significant drop in business support for banks when measured over one month, three month and six month periods.

Over the six months to December the average satisfaction score for all financial institutions fell 4.4 percentage points to 78 per cent.

Westpac suffered the biggest fall, down 6.6 percentage points over that period, ANZ was down 4.2 points, St George down 3.8 points, NAB down 3.1 and Commonwealth down 1.9.

Commonwealth continues its rise from the bottom of the ladder. St George has a customer satisfaction score of 83.7 per cent (six month rolling average), ANZ 80.4 per cent, Commonwealth and Westpac rank equally on 75.8 per cent and NAB is on 74.7 per cent.

Among the smaller banks, BankWest stands out as a result of a sharp decline in customer support. Its rating is down six percentage points over the past six months.