Business customers are not mobile app users

Small and medium business owners are taking to online banking with the same enthusiasm as consumers but there are some important differences in their approach to banks' digital offerings, according to new research.

When RFi Group surveyed businesses with revenues up to A$20 million a year, it found that only three per cent were using mobile banking apps to conduct online banking sessions.

Almost half (49 per cent) were using desktop or laptop computers to gain access to online banking platform for their daily banking.

RFi's head of insight, business and wealth, Natalie Gentle, said businesses used computers rather than smartphones because they had more complex requirements, such as linking their payment records to their accounting systems.

Gentle said 40 per cent of business owners would apply for a credit card online (using a computer or a smartphone) but only 15 per cent would apply for a business loan online.

"They want some advice with their loan application. The appetite for online banking only applies to some business banking products and it is important to know the difference," Gentle said.

Twenty-five per cent of the companies in the survey said they had a relationship manager. All of the businesses with relationship managers said they would go through the relationship manager to apply for a loan.

Gentle said relationship managers were the key part of the business banking proposition from a customer point of view and were the most important point of competitive difference in SME banking.

Customers with relationship managers reported that they were much more satisfied with their banks - an average of 77 per cent compared with 64 per cent for businesses that did not have a relationship manager.