A new report by Javelin Strategy & Research has examined the relationship between banks, merchants and consumers to determine how recent financial regulatory reform, including the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Durbin Amendment, will affect customer loyalty in banking.
The report’s findings could be particularly useful for financial institutions investigating how to prevent customer attrition, which could potentially increase as satisfaction continues to deteriorate. In 2010, customer satisfaction fell to 79 percent, down from 92 percent in 2004.
Banks will need to increase customer service and “assume a more visible and tangible pro-consumer stance,” Beth Robertson, director of payments research at Javelin, said.
“In order to give customers a greater sense of financial control and regain and foster long-term trust, providers must clearly lay out options in language that consumers can understand,” said Mark Schwanhausser, senior analyst of multi-channel financial services at Javelin.
And when consumers don’t trust their banks, they are ready to begin shopping around. A new global survey from Accenture found that customer loyalty dropped for 59 percent of the banks surveyed, signaling “a fundamental power shift” from the banks to the customer, Noel Gordon, managing director of Accenture’s banking industry practice, told American Banker.