UK Consumers Are Beginning To Like Their Online Banks, Says Survey

Online bank customers in the UK rate their bank more highly than they did a year ago. That is the conclusion drawn from the latest results from the Virtual Surveys' Online Banking Survey (V OBS). Results from the second quarter

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Online bank customers in the UK rate their bank more highly than they did a year ago. That is the conclusion drawn from the latest results from the Virtual Surveys’ Online Banking Survey (V-OBS). Results from the second quarter of 2003 show that 65% of customers overall rated their online bank as excellent or very good. This compares with 58% the same time last year.

“Some of the more highly rated online banks, such as Smile and First Direct, have continued to improve levels of customer satisfaction, but also some of the less highly rated online banks, such as Alliance & Leicester, NatWest and Egg, are now showing signs of improved performance,” says Quentin Ashby, Director at Virtual Surveys Ltd, who run the survey across all online banks.

The higher levels of customer satisfaction seem to be primarily due to online banks improving the speed and usability of their banking sites. The range of products and services offered online has also improved. In particular, customers are rating online money transfer, direct debit and standing order functions more highly than at the same period last year.

Virtual Surveys’ Online Banking Survey (V-OBS) League Table for Q2/2003:

Bank Mean Score

All Online Banks – 3.8

Smile – 4.4

First Direct – 4.4

Co-operative – 3.9

RBS – 3.9

Nationwide – 3.9

HSBC Bank – 3.8

Cahoot – 3.8

Egg – 3.8

IF – 3.8

Halifax – 3.7

Barclays – 3.7

Lloyds TSB – 3.6

NatWest – 3.5

Abbey National – 3.4

Bank of Scotland – 3.3

Woolwich – 3.3

Alliance & Leicester – 3.3

The Virtual Surveys’ Online Banking Survey (V-OBS) covered 5,238 customers of UK online banks interviewed between April and June 2003. Fieldwork is conducted online using a pop-up survey shown to a random sample of UK Internet users recruited from a variety of (non banking) UK websites. Response rate is estimated to be about 5% of all online bank customers shown the survey.

The survey first asks what online banks are used and then selects one at random to elicit feedback on. This bank is then rated on a set of standard attributes and users state what problems they have had recently and also offer spontaneous suggestions for their banks improvement. Ratings are on a five point scale from Excellent to Poor which is converted to a rating out of 5.

The V-OBS survey has been running since April 2001.

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