Big banks are under-achievers in superannuation cross-sell

ANZ chief executive Mike Smith has commented on a number of occasions that the bank is "underweight" in wealth management. This weakness has now shown up in a survey by Roy Morgan Research, which asked customers of the Big Four banks whether they had their superannuation invested in a fund operated by their bank.

ANZ ranked last in both the personal banking customer survey and the business customer survey.

Among personal banking customers, ANZ's superannuation cross-sell is 6.2 per cent, compared with 8.3 per cent for Commonwealth Bank, 9.5 per cent for National Australia Bank and 10.4 per cent for Westpac.

Among business banking customers, ANZ's superannuation cross-sell is 12.6 per cent, compared with 13 per cent for National Australia Bank, 17.4 per cent for Commonwealth Bank and 19.8 per cent for Westpac.

Overall, 50 per cent of personal banking customers of the big banks have their superannuation in industry funds, 14 per cent have it in public sector funds and eight per cent have it with AMP.

Forty-five per cent of the business banking customers of the big banks use industry funds and 17 per cent have self-managed funds.

The numbers are not impressive - not just for ANZ - given the investment the banks have made in acquiring wealth management businesses and building up financial planning teams over the past decade.