Data from Roy Morgan’s survey of 50,000 Australians has revealed that customers are significantly happier with the mortgage experience provided through non-major banks as compared to that of the big four.
Roy Morgan released two lists: the ten institutions with the highest satisfaction levels among its mortgage holders, and the ten institutions with the highest satisfaction levels across its non-home loan customers. The majors didn’t make it into the top five on either.
The satisfaction rating among home loan customers are as follows:
ME Bank 91.4%
ING 89.3%
Bendigo Bank 83.3%
Bankwest 77.1%
St George 75.8%
CBA 73.3%
Suncorp 72.6%
ANZ 72.1%
Westpac 70.4%
NAB 70.3%
For non-home loan customers, the order varied slightly, with ING sitting atop the list followed by Bendigo, ME, Suncorp, Bankwest, CBA, St George, ANZ, NAB, and then Westpac.
Suncorp had the largest discrepancy between the two categories, with mortgage holders rating the bank more than 8% points below non-home loan customers.
According to Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine, “it’s clear” smaller lenders have surpassed traditional institutions as the leaders in customer satisfaction.
“Not that long ago, it would have been difficult to believe that online lending institutions would be able to compete with, let alone beat, traditional lenders – which had branches situated all over the country - but that is exactly what’s happened,” she said.
“First, as people’s lives continue to shift online, there is growing acceptance of not being able to visit a bricks-and-mortar branch, and therefore decreasing dissatisfaction associated with that.
“Second, the lower overheads associated with an online business allow such institutions to offer additional services and attractive interest rates.
“A third key factor is the closure of branches by the major banks. APRA reports that the major banks closed 500 branches in 2018/19 alone.”
