The Best Banks in South Africa, According to Customers

The 2020 South Africa Consumer Satisfaction Index (Sacsi) for banking is out.

The index is published by consulting firm Consulta.

The 2020 report gauged customer sentiments on the biggest South African banks, namely: Absa, FNB, Capitec, Nedbank, Standard Bank and African Bank.

12,500 customers from all income levels were polled.

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The report was of particular interest, owing to the pandemic and how it affected the sector. Many banks had to adjust and restrucutre their loans, offering their clients much needed debt relief.

This, the report found, earned the banks a lot of goodwill and loyalty.

Nearly allbanks faired better than the previous year, with only African Bank scoring worse.

Overall, Capitec is most loved bank by its customers. African bank comes second, with Nedbank third.

Absa and Standard Bank fell below the industry average in terms of customer satisfaction and happiness.

“While Capitec maintains its leader position, it is showing signs of fatigue, with African Bank and Nedbank closing the gap. One of the challenges for all banks is to outpace rising customer expectations which show a year-on-year increase, markedly so after the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Sacsi noted.

This is the second consecutive year that Nedbank has outperfomed FNB.

“Nedbank’s robust and consistent improvement, which has focused on getting its positioning, pricing, messaging, customer-facing, and online channels right, is paying dividends,” Sacsi said.

“This is further demonstrated in a recent Banking Market Share study conducted by Consulta in 2020, which shows that despite the turbulent year, Nedbank has maintained its market share, while all other banks declined in market share, except for Capitec, which grew by 4%.”

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