According to a study conducted by the comparator of banking fees better banquet, the French judge better services rendered by these banks, also cheaper, than those of the network banks.
Cheaper online banks do not give less satisfaction to their customers. On the contrary. According to a study conducted by the best bank banking comparator, online banking customers are more satisfied with their bank than network bank customers (88% vs. 79% for the latter). “Customers are becoming more and more autonomous,” explains Romain Espinasse, director of the comparator. For a growing number of them, a network of agencies, in which they do not go, brings less added value than before “. More than 8 out of 10 traditional bank customers still visit an agency once a year, but this proportion is tending to decrease. And clients under 49 are only one in three to visit once a month.
The service whose quality matters the most to the 4290 customers surveyed is now … the website, including those for traditional banks. Two out of three clients surveyed visit their bank site at least once a week, and one in five once a day. On this point, the establishments that give the most satisfaction to their customers are Crédit du Nord, CIC, and Crédit Mutuel, as regards network banks, as well as ING and Fortune for online banks. But even when it comes to consulting, online banks offer superior service, according to the opinion of the customers surveyed. For both “day-to-day” counseling and “life projects” (real estate loans, life insurance underwriting, etc.), digital players have higher satisfaction rates (79% vs. 77% for the first service). 81% vs. 77% for the second). The only exception is the management of incidents, such as the loss of a bank card, the management of a fraud or an overdraft (68% satisfaction for online banks, 76% for traditional banks).
“Honeymoon effect”
How to explain these results? “Distance is not a brake on the relationship,” says Espinasse. And the organization of most online banks in specialized call centers by theme can explain the effectiveness of their advisors, more specialized than the general adviser’s agencies “. Regarding the council, it is still Crédit Mutuel, then the Banque Populaire and Crédit du Nord that give the most satisfaction to customers of traditional banks, while Fortune (a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Arkea) and ING win the prize for banks online.
Online banks, which have acquired their customers more recently, however, benefit from a “honeymoon effect” according to the best bank. “The first and second year after changing banks, satisfaction rates are very high. Then, the quality of the service is trivialized and the opinions are a little less enthusiastic “, notes Romain Espinasse. One in ten customers had an account in an online bank in 2015, according to a study conducted by Nextbanq. But noticeably, more and more customers, who in the past used online banks as secondary banks, now adopt them as major banks. ING, the number one customer, and Boursorama, the largest number of current accounts, are the two largest players in the sector.
Behind almost all these online banks hides, however, a mastodon of the banking sector: Boursorama thus depends on the Societe Generale Group, Fortune Credit Mutuel, Hello Bank of BNP Paribas or BforBank Credit Agricole. In 2017, the Orange telecom operator will launch its own bank, Orange Bank. While the mobile is a growing point of contact of customers with their banking institution, this newcomer could contribute to weakening the position of the network banks.
