NAB satisfaction score improving in retail segment

There are some positive signs for National Australia Bank in the latest, monthly monitor of customer satisfaction with banks, published by Roy Morgan research.

Although still ranked fourth among the big four banks, the December 2009 monitor shows the biggest improvement for NAB amongst the big four over the last 12 months, with a rise of 2.2 percentage points.

The improvement for NAB was seen evenly across both home loan and non-home customers.

This might be linked to NAB's initiatives to eliminate some nuisance fees on everyday bank accounts as well as a late 2009 decision to limit interest rate increases (though the bank failed to pass on all RBA rate cuts earlier in 2009).

Roy Morgan Research said Commonwealth Bank was the second biggest improver of the big four over the last 12 months, with a rise of 1.9 percentage points, but suffered a decline (of 1.3 percentage points) in the satisfaction level of its home loan customers.

Westpac is still in second place behind the ANZ but is now only 0.9 percentage points ahead of Commonwealth Bank, compared to a lead of 2.1 percentage points 12 months ago.

Westpac mortgage customers have increased their satisfaction level over the last 12 months to Dec (up 2.9 percentage points) but there appears to be an early sign of a decline in this performance.

ANZ remains the market leader amongst the big four with 74.8 percentage satisfaction but over the last 12 months it has been the only major to show a slight decline.