Business banking satisfaction falls

According to the latest Roy Morgan Research survey of business customer satisfaction, business customer ratings of their banks have fallen by an average of 2.9 percentage points over the past six moths.

The average satisfaction level among business customers was 66.1 per cent in March, compared with an average satisfaction level of 82.9 among retail customers.

Among the big banks, Westpac leads the pack with a rating of 67.4 per cent. Commonwealth Bank's rating is 66.1 per cent, NAB's 65 per cent and ANZ's 57.4 per cent.

ANZ's rating has plummeted over the past six months and is now at its lowest point since 2010.

Overall, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has the highest rating, with 80.9 per cent of its business customers saying they are satisfied with the bank. Suncorp has a rating of 78.2 per cent, St George 66.8 per cent and Bankwest 61.2 per cent.

Roy Morgan industry communications director Norman Morris said banks were focusing more on the very satisfied category because those customers tended to be advocates for the bank - encouraging others to do business with it.

The proportion of "very satisfied" businesses is well below the level of very satisfied retail customers. Roy Morgan found that 36.1 per cent of CBA's retail customers were very satisfied but only 18.4 per cent of its business customers were very satisfied.

Very satisfied ratings for NAB were 36.6 per cent retail and 20.5 per cent business, for Westpac 34.1 per cent retail and 20.3 per cent business, and for ANZ 32.7 per cent retail and 18.7 per cent business.