|
3 June 2008
Auckland
New Zealanders are interacting with their banks in an increasingly diverse range of ways from Internet to telephone banking, ATMs, EFTPOS and cell phone banking - at the expense of a visit to a branch - and consumers are generally happy with the experience, according to the latest Nielsen New Zealand Consumer Finance Monitor online survey.
“Compared with three years ago, electronic methods are clearly growing in popularity, in particular, Internet banking, where we have seen a 62 percent increase in people using this banking method. By contrast, the traditional visit to the bank has been on the decline since 2005,” remarked Donald Sheppard, Associate Director, Financial Research, The Nielsen Company in New Zealand.
Banking Service Used |
2008 vs. 2005 |
Internet Banking |
+62% |
Telephone banking |
+13% |
Used ATM |
+12% |
Used EFTPOS |
+4% |
Visited branch (for more than for ATM) |
-23% |
Used mobile phone banking |
8% (didn’t exist in ’05) |
“New Zealanders are increasingly time poor and are less inclined to visit a bank branch for all their banking needs. Increasingly, consumers have turned to electronic banking channels as these services are open 24/7 and offer greater convenience and speed.”
It is not surprising that relatively few people who visit branches transfer funds or obtain their account balance (only 9% and 8% respectively). By contrast, branches are now largely used for services that cannot be provided electronically such as depositing funds (38%) and obtaining professional banking advice (19%).
The good news for the major banks is that both electronic and personal channels have high satisfaction levels across the board. (See Chart 1)
Compared to other methods of banking, online Internet banking currently receives the highest satisfaction rating with 79% rating this area as either excellent or very good.
Around three-quarters of consumers are satisfied with branch service (74% excellent or very good) and automated telephone service (73%).
Call Centre staff ratings tend to be a little lower than for other methods with only 63% of people rating the service they receive as excellent or very good.
“Keeping service strong across all areas is important for the main banks because whilst electronic channels are gaining ground, banking is a very competitive market and personal interactions are still important, especially where banking advice is concerned” commented Mr Sheppard.
Chart 1: Average Rating for each Type of Interaction with the Bank
How would you rate your main provider in this area?
About The Nielsen Consumer Finance Monitor
Nielsen’s Online Consumer Finance Monitor interviews people using the Nielsen Your Voice Online panel, which is a dedicated market research panel. The margin of error for the overall results covering October 2007 to March 2008 (6,612 respondents) is +/- 1.2%. To ensure the data is representative of the online population, the results are weighted by age, gender, region and frequency of Internet access. To compare the 2005 CFM with the 2008 CFM data, the 2005 CFM data is based on those who use the Internet.
About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), (Nielsen Online, which is comprised of NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.
Back to Top
|
