Banking News

Some banks shooting goals in corporate land; lots not

(Sydney – 7th May 2003) Australia’s Top 500 Corporates are demanding greater understanding and loyalty from their banks but the banks are more focussed on products and only a few are delivering in key relationship areas, according to new research from East & Partners.

The just released April 2003 results of East’s six monthly Australian Corporate Banking Program (Customer Satisfaction) show that banks are continuing to perform well in product, although competence here is increasingly considered "a given" by customers, but are performing poorly in customer relationships – the biggest area of need being expressed by customers.

452 of Australia’s Top 500 Corporates participated in this latest East & Partners analysis, which looked at bank-by-bank’ performance across 26 different product and relationship factors.

These latest results found:

The Industry’s Customer Satisfaction Performance

• Loyalty to the Relationship stays number one in importance to the customer, although customers rated bank performance as only average.

• Quality of People is rated second by customers, but customer satisfaction has come in at only 10th equal ranking.

• Understanding the Customer’s Real Business Needs has rated third in importance to corporates, but has been rated 10th equal out of the 26 factors for actual delivery.

• Understanding the Customer’s Industry Sector has rated fourth for importance, but placed 22nd in terms of customer satisfaction.

• Account (Relationship) Management is regarded as the fourth most important factor for customers, but has been ranked in last place in terms of customer satisfaction.

Banks rated best by their primary relationship customers:

Cash Management, Debt & Bonds	1st CBA
	2nd Macquarie
	3rd ABN Amro
Relationship Bankers	1st BNP Paribas
	2nd CBA
	3rd St George
Treasury & Financial Markets	1st Deutsche
	2nd CBA
	3rd ABN Amro
Corporate Finance & Advisory	1st Goldman Sachs
	2nd UBS Warburg
	3rd Macquarie

Commenting on this latest report, East & Partners’ Principal Analyst Paul Dowling said: "Life is getting harder and harder for service providers in all product spaces, with corporates continuing to lift their performance hurdles and being much more inclined to move relationships immediately they perceive service levels may be dropping".

"As industry analysts, we are seeing open service tenders, independent relationship audits and ROI reviews of banking relationships being executed by customers more and more commonly in Australia’s corporate and institutional markets. Transparency and service accountability are the key catch cries currently; banks are looking to bundle and cross-sell product and pricing, whilst corporates are looking to strip and segment their product supply arrangements."

For more information contact:

Paul Dowling
Principal Analyst
East & Partners
Tel: 61-2-9004 7855
Mob: 61-416 166 682
paul.d@eastandpartners.com