Bangkok--16 Jul--Jigsaw Communications
Key facts
· FIS releases its first annual Consumer Banking PACE Index, evaluating bank Performance Against Customer Expectations (PACE) in North and South America, Europe and Asia.
· Index empowers Thailand's financial institutions by helping them understand consumer expectations that can translate into new services and delivery opportunities.
· Results show financial institutions excel at providing digital access, but the trust factor continues to be important for consumers.
According to consumers worldwide, financial institutions excel at leveraging digital technology to meet convenience, choice and access needs of customers, but banks have permission to do more to become trusted advisors and move the banking relationship beyond transactional convenience to the center of the consumers' living experience. In order to do so, consumers worldwide want to see banks increase performance in basic banking areas to meet customer expectations and win trust. Those are just some of the findings of a new in-depth global research study released by FIS™ (NYSE: FIS), a global leader in banking and payments technology as well as consulting and outsourcing solutions.
The FIS Consumer Banking PACE Index™ tracks how financial institutions are performing against customer expectations in nine different countries: Thailand, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States using data compiled from more than 9,000 banking consumers. Commissioned by FIS, the study was conducted by TNS, one of the world's largest independent research agencies.
While some of the results show the industry meeting or exceeding customer expectations – Thai banks exceed expectations when it comes to convenience and connectivity, for instance – many of the responses were striking for the opportunities they present for financial institutions, especially as the trust factor continues to be a concern for consumers.
ThailandResults
Financial institutions in Thailand showed the greatest opportunities for growth in the index, finishing with a score of 62. That score – 21 points behind leader Germany – can be explained by a combination of factors, probably the most important being the relatively wide gap in perceived security of personal identity.
Protecting Personal Information
The protection of personal identity was the second most important attribute for consumers who took part in the PACE Index. Thailand banks saw particularly low scores in that area, relative to other countries in the survey, which dragged down the country's score overall. As seen in the graph, safety and security ranked highest in importance among respondents, and banks in both areas were rated as underperforming.
Fairness and Reliability
Banks in Thailand also have the largest gap to make up when it comes to perceived gap between expectations and performance of security around personal identity. Compared to other banks around the world, banks in Thailand received the lowest scores for fairness. This is important because fairness and reliability represent two of the most important attributes in building trusted relationships with customers.
Digital Access
Thailand is well on its way to having a high percentage of its banked population using some form of mobile payments. And banks in the country outperformed expectations in regard to digital payments and connectivity. However, the scores for both areas were not strong enough to overcome weaknesses in delivering on the most important basic banking requirements.
Global Results
Results of the study show that, worldwide, banked consumers say financial institutions excel at providing digital access and convenience. However, in basic banking areas such as fair and transparent pricing, banks fall below consumer expectations. In fact, only one in four respondents believes a financial institution meets his or her needs in these basic trust and relationship areas. In addition, the study concludes there is great opportunity for banks to win consumer support by packaging rewards programs with personalized, customized banking products to meet customer needs.
This suggests that while the financial industry as a whole is successfully delivering digital access solutions, there are significant opportunities to reset the foundation for consumer relationships. In addition, the results indicate financial institutions can forge deeper relationships via the digital experience by fully leveraging online, mobile and social platforms to integrate with consumers' lives through insight-driven alerts, advisory services, planning tools and more.
"New providers and non-traditional financial institutions continue to make inroads, particularly amongst younger generations, who studies show will soon make up the majority of bank revenues," said N. Brian Birt, managing director ASEAN and North Asia, FIS. "With these challengers poised to grab customers, financial institutions have the opportunity to lead with their strengths and re-define advisory services. Consumers value the banking relationship and banks have a significant opportunity to be viewed as more than a vehicle for transactional convenience, but rather a true focal point of consumers' financial lives."
The study's research method was comprised of 1,000 individual consumer surveys in each focus country. Surveys were conducted online, with individuals aged 18-75 who have a checking or equivalent account with a financial institution, and who have financial decision-making authority within their household.
Questions were designed to minimize cross-cultural biases, where feasible; for scalar questions, normalization procedures were used in the analysis to mitigate bias. Surveys also were targeted to meet age and gender demographics for each country.