Around three fifths of personal superannuation customers at Westpac (60.3 per cent) and CBA (59.6 per cent) also held banking products at the group. The figures were lower at ANZ (45.3 per cent of super customers) while at NAB, 34.9 of personal super customers held banking products at the group in the 12 months to July 2013, the Roy Morgan Consumer and Business Finance Single Source Survey found.
For business super customers, the crossover to banking products was similar at Westpac (59.3 per cent), lower at CBA (49.4 per cent) and ANZ (41.5 per cent) and higher at NAB (38.6 per cent).
“Over the last few years, the big four banks have capitalised on cross selling to their superannuation customers, with Westpac reporting the largest increase, followed by NAB, ANZ and CBA,” the report stated.
“For other institutions that are keen to expand their footprint in traditional banking, this can be a good opportunity to explore. More importantly for AMP Group and Industry Super, this can be a great starting point to attract new banking customers.”
At AMP, which has a smaller focus on retail banking compared to the four majors, 2.7 per cent of personal super customers also held banking products with the group. The industry super segment unsurprisingly saw little super and banking crossover, with just 1.6 per cent of six million members holding accounts with ME Bank.
AMP had a slightly higher crossover among its business super customers (4.0 per cent), while just 0.7 per cent of industry fund members held business banking products with ME Bank.
“Cross sell of financial products is an increasingly important target of all the major financial service providers to try and increase their share in the current competitive market,” said Norman Morris, industry communications director, Roy Morgan Research.
Over two thirds of the consumer and business population in Australia, which consists of 13.4 million consumers aged 14 and over and 1.4 million businesses, have a superannuation account and “it would be beneficial to capitalise on their existing relationship with the institution by cross selling banking products as has been recognised by Industry Funds with ME Bank, and AMP with AMP Bank”, Mr Morris said.
“In the past, the superannuation industry has not been building on the significant relationship they have with their members by selling them additional products. However, we are seeing a change in recent years, but there is still a long way to go,” he said.
“The superannuation specialists are obviously up against tough competition from the big four banks when it comes to banking products because their members already have relationships with these banks. Giving superannuation customers a reason to change banks from the majors to the bank-aligned or owned by the superannuation fund is the challenge,” Mr Morris said.
