Access Bank Plc, United Bank of Africa (UBA) and Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO) have emerged as the top three banks with the highest customer satisfaction in digital banking services, a survey conducted by Agusto &Co, a Pan-African credit rating agency says.
The survey, which was conducted in major cities across Nigeria, assessed customer experience in various digital banking channels, including mobile banking, internet banking, and USSD banking among 15 banks.
It also evaluated the ease of use, reliability, security, and overall satisfaction of customers.
Based on the parameters of the digital banking satisfaction index, such as higher estimated transaction success rates, ease of navigation, and awareness and active usage of services provided, Access Bank recorded the highest user experience score of 94.6, UBA scored the second highest with 94.4 while GTCO was third with a user experience score of 91.4.
While First City Monument Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, and FirstBank had the least consumer digital banking satisfaction score card with 74.5, 65.1, and 63.6 respectively.
Access Bank also recorded the highest usage of USSD code with 53 percent of consumers citing the platform as their most frequently used for digital banking transactions.
“In line with its level of awareness, USSD banking applications are widely used across the coverage banks. Access Bank recorded the highest usage of its USSD code *901# with 53 percent of the Bank’s respondents citing the platform as their most frequently used for digital banking transactions,” Agusto &Co said.
Agusto &Co attributed Access bank level of usage to the Access Winfest Campaign launched in October which plans to reward customers up to N1 billion in cash and other items for carrying out transactions using the USSD code or accessMore app.
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“We believe the level of usage recorded is supported by the Access Winfest Campaign launched in October which plans to reward customers up to N1 billion in cash and other items for carrying out transactions using the USSD code or accessMore app,” Agusto &Co said.
In terms of respondents’ perceptions of the security on banks’ digital platforms, Zenith Bank had the highest percentage. The next- and third-highest banks, respectively, were UBA and Access Bank, with 80 and 79 percent.
First Bank Nigeria and Standard Chartered Bank had the lowest excellent ratings with only 39 percent and 54 percent of the banks’ customers being satisfied with the level of security on their digital platforms.
The poor ratings were attributed by the respondents to a history of security breaches, the receipt of phishing emails and text messages, and notifications not being sent promptly when the platform is viewed.
Also, respondents of Keystone Bank, Polaris Bank, First Bank, FCMB and Standard Charterd Bank disclosed transaction success rates of below 70 percent.
Approximately 70 pecent of the survey respondents indicated that they are not willing to switch to another bank’s digital platform. This is less than the 82 percent of respondents recorded in the 2021 survey.
High service fees, bad customer service, frequent platform outages, and other issues were cited by customers as the major reasons they were willing to make a switch to another bank’s digital banking platform.
Approximately 30 pecent of the respondents were willing to switch to another bank’s digital platform with 23 percent citing frequent application downtimes as one of the key reasons.
Agusto &Co said the Covid-19 pandemic brought to the fore the importance of digital channels and further accelerated investments in digital banking platforms by banks.
However, the increased onboarding on digital platforms has also elicited the need to further tighten security protocols to combat the growing level of fraud and breaches on digital channels.
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