Business customers have showed the highest level of dissatisfaction with their banks since the end of last year, with NAB and ANZ customers reporting they’re the least happy with their banks.
Business customer satisfaction in August experienced its biggest monthly decrease since the out-of-cycle interest rate rises at the end of last year.
Average business customer satisfaction in DBM’s Business Financial Services Monitor decreased from a record high of 7.2 in July to 7.1 in August across all businesses in the survey.
According to DBM Managing Director Dhruba Gupta, the steep fall in equity markets and renewed fears about the economic outlook in Australia and internationally seem to have bumped up concerns amongst business about their banking relationships.
“It’s early days, but this month’s decrease is noteworthy because of its size and the fact it breaks the upward momentum of the past year. We will be watching closely to see whether it develops into a downward trend.”
Westpac ranked the highest of the four major banks, down from 7.4 to 7.3, CBA followed with 7.2 (steady), ANZ is on 7.0 (down 0.1) and NAB remains steady on 6.9.
Gupta said the latest results had consolidated Westpac and CBA as the business satisfaction leaders.
“Our analysis last month showed that Westpac and CBA were rated more highly by businesses that were pessimistic about their business outlook. We predicted this could help their overall satisfaction score if sentiment and conditions deteriorated, and that already appears to be playing out.”
