Capitec, FNB rule the roost in banking innovation - index

Capitec Bank notched itself yet another win against its competitors this past week as BrandsEye announced in its South African Banking Sentiment Index for the year 2018 that the bank had the best sentiment among consumers and was the least likely to have its customers leave.

Customer loyalty is even more telling in this year’s survey as it found that up to 30 048 people who were surveyed, had discussed or considered leaving their current bank at some point.

While Capitec rose to the top amongsthe banks overall, First National Bank posted the most improvement. The executive summary of the survey said Capitec emerged as the top-ranking bank by net sentiment, that but FNB made significant improvements since 2017.

"Standard Bank replaced Absa as the lowest ranked bank. In an analysis of digital banking conversation, FNB outperformed competitor banks overall, a trend largely driven by the brand’s use of technological innovation," said the executive summary.

• READ: Capitec ranked 1st in SA, 3rd in world - global banking study

In a statement BrandsEye said it retrieved 1.7m public social media posts about SA banks from 1 September 2017 to August 31. Of these, 521 326 were evaluated for sentiment on BrandsEye’s Crowd platform.

"The sentiment index explores the major issues influencing sentiment among consumers, as well as the reasons consumers left or threatened to leave their banks. With several new digital entrants set to launch soon, the index features an analysis of conversation about digital banking themes," the statement said. 

According to the executive summary, digital conversation was a pertinent issue for 24% in overall conversations. While FNB made gains, Standard Bank had the lowest net sentiment for digital themes at -72.7%.

"FNB had the highest overall net sentiment (+42.6%) across key digital indicators – digital safety, banking app, online banking and business and technological innovation," the executive summary said.

Nedbank received high levels of negative sentiment for business or technological innovation, a development triggered by consumer backlash against the impact of proposed technological innovations on jobs at the bank.