Home borrowers the least satisfied bank customers: Roy Morgan

Consumer satisfaction at the four major banks increased marginally during April, taking the current levels well above the long-term average.

The latest Roy Morgan research polled more than 50,000 consumers and found that consumer satisfaction with the big four was at 80.1% in the six months prior to April.

The small increase of 0.3% from the same period in 2016.

It sits above the long-term average of 74.9% recorded since 2005.

However, home loan customers are less satisfied with levels sitting at 78% compared to 80.5% for other types of customers.

Home loan customers at CBA experienced the highest satisfaction levels at 78.8%. This was followed by Westpac (78.5%), NAB (77.3%) and ANZ (77.0%). The biggest improvement in this area was for ANZ (up 1.0%) and NAB (up 0.9%).

Over the past year, the big banks have closed this gap marginally, researchers found.

Amongst the big four banks, consumer satisfaction levels are as follows:

• Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): 81.4%
• National Australia Bank (NAB): 80.2%
• Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ): 78.7%
• Westpac: 78.1%

Westpac experienced the largest improvement in April, Australian Broker noted, moving up 0.7% as a result of increases in scores for both home loan and non-home loan customers.

For non-home loan customers, CBA again leads at 81.9%. This is followed by NAB (81.0%), ANZ (79.1%) and Westpac (78.0%).

“Roy Morgan data shows that customer satisfaction with the big four banks remains well above their long term average and after trending up strongly for more than a decade, for the last two years it has plateaued rather than showing any real signs of declining,” said Norman Morris, industry communications director at Roy Morgan Research.