National Australia Bank put its nose in front of ANZ in Roy Morgan's October consumer banking customer satisfaction survey, the two banks then had the same score in November, but, according to figures released yesterday, NAB was back in front in December.The last time NAB could boast of having more satisfied retail customers than its big bank peers was in 2000, and it has recorded some very poor ratings in between.NAB's satisfaction rating for December was 78 per cent, compared with ANZ's rating of 77.9 per cent, Commonwealth Bank's 77.5 per cent and Westpac's 76.4 per cent.The highest rating financial institution in the Roy Morgan survey in December was Newcastle Permanent Building Society, with a customer satisfaction score of 93.8 per cent.Other institutions with high ratings included the Teachers Credit Union, with a score of 91.9 per cent, Heritage Building Society (90.7 per cent), IMB (90.1 per cent) and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (89.5 per cent).The majority of financial institutions in the survey have improved their ratings over the past 12 months - some by considerable margins. Macquarie Bank's rating increased by 10.3 percentage points.