The Roy Morgan Research Consumer Single Source survey found consumers show little loyalty to any financial institution in the market, with the average customer of each of the major banks dealing with more than four financial institutions for the full range of financial services they require, including banking, managed funds and insurance.
The Commonwealth Bank Group had the best performance in terms of customer loyalty, even though its customers still deal with an average of 4.1 financial institutions.
CBA was followed by the Westpac Group, whose customers deal with 4.6 institutions on average, ANZ Banking Group at 4.7, and NAB Group at 4.9.
Customers of foreign banks such as Citigroup, ING Direct and HSBC tended to deal with a greater number of financial institutions, with Citigroup customers dealing with an average of 6.3 institutions, followed by ING Direct at 6.3 and HSBC at 5.8.
Roy Morgan said this is probably because all three are foreign banks and they generally attract more upmarket customers with special or more complex needs that result in them using a larger number of financial institutions.
CBA Group was also found to be the most successful in terms of the share of customer products held, with CBA products accounting for 37.8 per cent of the total products held by CBA customers.
This was followed by Westpac Group with a share of 32.8 per cent, ANZ at 29.9 per cent and NAB at 27.8 per cent.
The results also indicated CBA has the largest share of its customers' wealth, holding around 34.3 per cent of their money.
Roy Morgan's director of industry communications, Norman Morris, said the survey's finding that customers of the major banks deal with more than four financial institutions and generally have only about one third of their products with any one bank shows consumers are exercising choice in relation to financial products.
“While most institutions have made some small gains in product cross-sell since 2010, overall they have not performed well,” said Mr Morris.
“Reasons for this include lack of incentive for customers to consolidate; competition from specialist providers, such as for superannuation and insurance; lack of product awareness; some concern regarding the spread of risk; and staff that may not feel confident in a selling role.”
Mr Morris said it is clear that there is considerable competition in the market, which presents both opportunities and challenges for all major players if they are to consolidate their customers' business.
