SBI tops trust and popularity charts

Citibank has the most loyal customers in India, international brands have higher loyalty and trust levels than homegrown banks: Brand Finance

State Bank of India (SBI) is India’s most trusted and most popular bank according to a survey conducted by Brand Finance, a business valuation and strategic consultancy headquartered in London. On the trust charts, SBI is followed by HDFC Bank and Central Bank of India whereas on the popularity charts, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank take the second and third spots respectively.

“Consumer loyalty stems from consistent focus on being customer centric. SBI has earned the trust of its customers by staying focused on developing most relevant products and services from time to time, by being transparent in our dealings with them and being easily accessible to them,” said Neeraj Vyas, deputy managing director and COO, SBI. 

The survey conducted by Brand Finance ascertained customer behaviour towards banks on three big parameters: loyalty (how unlikely is a customer to switch banks), trust and popularity (the bank that customers said they were most likely to switch to). SBI ranked first with a trust level of 86.3 per cent. It was also the most popular bank among those customers that were looking to switch to competition (because they were unhappy with their present banks) with 21.4 per cent declaring they would choose SBI. 

Citi Bank topped the list of banks with most loyal customers with almost half its customers saying they were unlikely to switch to another bank. “Citi is focused on providing our retail customers with global banking and wealth solutions, delivered digitally at a time and place of their convenience. We will continue to innovate to keep up with our clients’ rapidly evolving lifestyles so that we may continue to gain their loyalty,” said Shinjini Kumar, consumer business manager, Global Consumer Banking, Citi India.

Customers of public sector banks, SBI and Canara Bank also showed high customer loyalty. However, half of the Oriental Bank of Commerce’s and the UCO Bank’s customers said that they were ‘very likely’ to switch to competition, showing the highest level of ‘disloyalty’ among all Indian bank brands.

According to brand consultant Bharat Bambawale, it is important to remember that customer loyalty in the banking sector is a tricky metric. Loyalty depends on the nature of the customer and the maturity of his or her banking practices. However there are a few factors that banks must concentrate upon to improve loyalty and trust levels and these are: fully Internet enabled services, minimal cross-selling and sales calls, personalised service and a holistic look at customer needs. 

In general, according to the report, the Indian banking market is more flexible when it comes to customer preferences than many established banking markets, especially Switzerland, the US, or Britain. The Indian story fits in with the overall finding that growth market customers are generally more likely to switch between bank brands. In the UAE for instance, on average 27.5 per cent customers declared they are ready to try banking with the competition. This is also the case in India, where on average 34.5 per cent of customers stated that they were likely to switch, if they were unhappy.
 

At the same time, levels of trust are relatively high in India, with two in three respondents declaring trust in most bank brands researched. Trust is a double edged sword however and as several brand surveys have shown, brands need to work doubly hard to regain consumer trust once they lose it.

Methodology: Brand Finance researched 19,000 people in 22 markets. The samples were randomly selected and consisted on average of over 850 respondents, representative of each market. The data was gathered with the help of online questionnaires and completed in November 2016 ahead of the release of the Brand Finance Banking 500 in February 2017