Sterling Bank is Nigeria’s 3rd best in retail banking, says KPMG

Sterling Bank Plc, Nigeria’s leading commercial bank, is the third best retail banking institution in Nigeria, according to KPMG Nigeria in its 2019 Nigeria Banking Industry Customer Experience Survey released in Lagos recently.

The ranking, which singled out Sterling Bank as one of the biggest movers in the banking industry since 2017, was the outcome of a research that was completed across the second and third quarters of 2019 and collected via face-to-face and online survey methodology.

According to the survey, which covered 25,466 retail customers, 3,045 SMEs and 369 commercial/corporate organisations, “After the 2017 peak, we have now seen two years of decline in overall customer experience (CX) performance in the retail segment with nearly half of the rated banks falling below the industry average.”

Sterling Bank scored 72.1 percent, along with Access Bank, but both trailed GTBank and Zenith Bank Plc which scored 74.2 percent and 73.4 percent to rank first and second respectively in the period under review.

The report said the top two performers had remained the same for the fourth consecutive year although GTBank replaced Zenith Bank as the top-rated bank in this year’s rankings while Sterling Bank, First Bank and UBA are the biggest movers this year – occupying 3rd, 5th and 7th positions respectively.

It noted that only two banks recorded actual increases in their customer experience scores – reflecting higher customer expectations and the imperative to respond to rapidly evolving customer expectations.

Read also: Top 100 Fastest Growing  SMEs in Nigeria

Further analysis of the report showed dynamism in the SME segment in this year’s ranking. Despite lower levels of overall satisfaction for SMEs, Fidelity Bank and Ecobank made the greatest improvements with both banks moving up more than four places into the top five.

“In the corporate segment, we also see a dip in overall CX scores compared to the previous year’s performance. Citibank and GTBank maintained top spots from last year, with new entrants Standard Chartered and Access Bank making top five positions at 3rd and 5th places respectively,” the report said.

“When assessed against the six pillars, integrity, defined as being trustworthy and engendering trust, is the pillar where Nigerian banks perform the strongest. This is not unexpected given the role banks play in the lives of customers,” the report noted.

It also observed that integrity was fundamental to great customer experience because, without it, the experience loses value. It, however, noted that personalisation, which is the bank’s ability to use individualised attention to drive an emotional connection with the customer, lags other pillars.

Read also: Fidelity Bank comes tops in KPMG SME customer experience survey

The report said, “Ultimately, as more banks progress towards an average score, less differentiation is noted amongst them by customers while performing well is the new minimum standard required and adapting to changing expectations is critical to success.”

According to the report, while the Nigerian banking landscape has constantly been characterised by steep competition, the stakes have been raised even higher and performing well on customer experience is the new minimum standard.

It added that as the race for the customer intensifies, front-runners would be those who demonstrate an understanding of the customer’s specific circumstances to consistently deliver a personalised experience.

To participate in the research and to be able to respond to questions on a specific bank, respondents must have interacted with that bank in the last six months.

Since 2007, KPMG in Nigeria has been asking customers across segments about their individual experiences with their banks. Over this period, more than 200,000 customers have been interviewed across the country.