Customer satisfaction ratings weather interest rate moves

Four official interest rate increases since August plus some re-pricing by the banks on their own initiative might have been expected to do some damage to customer satisfaction scores, but the latest survey results show that banks are holding up remarkably well.

Over the six months to March 2008, five of the 10 banks covered by the Roy Morgan Research retail customer survey increased their scores, some by big margins.

BankWest's rating rose 6.7 percentage points to 78.1 per cent (customers who are satisfied), while Bank of Queensland's score rose six points to 85.1 per cent.

Others whose satisfaction scores increased over the six-month period were ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and NAB.

Those whose scores fell were Westpac, Adelaide Bank, Bendigo Bank, Suncorp and St George.

Business banking customers have been even more generous in their assessments. The latest TNS Business Finance Monitor shows all nine banks in the survey improving their ratings over the past six months.

Commonwealth Bank is the big improver in the TNS survey, picking up 9.3 percentage points over the six months for a score of 71.1 per cent (but still lagging well behind its rivals).

BankWest increased its rating by 7.5 percentage points to 76.7 per cent.

The top rating in the TNS survey went to Bendigo, with a satisfaction rating of 94 per cent, followed by Bank of Queensland, with 89.9 per cent, and St George on 84.2 per cent.

The East & Partners business banking sentiment index was up overall by 10 basis points over the previous month (East & Partners does not provide six month comparisons).

East & Partners financial markets' analyst Peter Drennan said it was the best overall score for the 10 banks in the survey since 2006. St George has the top score, at 60.9 per cent, followed by Bank of Queensland (59.7 per cent) and HSBC (56.6 per cent).

Commonwealth is at the bottom of the East & Partners survey, with a score of 23.6 per cent, behind Suncorp (29.3 per cent) and Citi (29.8 per cent).