Top 500 CFOs choose different banks for their personal accounts, CFOs from smaller firms more loyal
(Australia) – Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) at Australia’s Top 500 companies have a very different approach to their private banking arrangements than their counterparts at smaller companies, with more than 60 percent of the Top 500 CFOs choosing to bank privately with a different institution than their company, according to recent research from East and Partners.
This compares
with the vast majority of CFOs from smaller – or “commercial sub-A$100
million” – organisations, 81.7 percent of whom use the same bank as
their company.
East
interviewed chief financial officers or their equivalents at 456 of
Australia’s Top 500 companies in February – representing a 91.2 percent
coverage – and found that 61.8 percent of respondents banked privately with
a different institution from their companies.
Moreover, the
Top 500 CFOs were happy doing so.
46.8 percent
described themselves as “very happy” with their private banking
relationships and 40.8 percent described themselves as “reasonably
ok.”
Only 8
percent described themselves as “not happy” and 5.2 percent were
“most dissatisfied.”
These results
contrast with a structured sample of 651 CFOs or their equivalents at
Australian firms turning over between A$20-100 million a year, interviewed
by East in December 2002 and January this year.
That survey
found that although 81.7 percent of these CFOs banked personally with the
same banks as their companies, the majority of them were dissatisfied.
31.1 percent
described themselves as “not happy,” while 20.7 percent said they
were “most dissatisfied” with their banking relationship.
Only 18.2 of
these CFOs said they were “very happy” with their personal banks,
and 30.0 percent were “reasonably ok.”
Commenting on
the report, East and Partners principal analyst Paul Dowling said:
“Both results show feelings of dissatisfaction with banks.”
“Top 500
CFOs go elsewhere for their personal banking often because they are privy to
a deeper understanding of what their company’s banks can and cannot do for
them – they are more complex customers. Large company CFOs also like some
distance in these private versus corporate banking relationships, not
withstanding many having received pretty enticing propositions for their
business.”
“CFOs at
smaller companies are still suffering from the ‘loyalty at all costs’
outlook which has characterised that sector’s corporate banking
relationships, and yet the majority of them are deeply unhappy with their
private banking arrangements.”
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For more
information:
Lachlan Colquhoun
Executive Editor
East & Partners
Tel: 61-2-9004 7855
Fax: 61-2-9004 7070
Mobile: 61-405 322 399
lachlan.c@eastandpartners.com
www.eastandpartners.com