A survey of 50,000 Australians by researcher Roy Morgan found the big four banks have close to the population average of ‘technology early adopter’ customers.
Less than one in five (18.7 per cent) of Australians can be classified as ‘technology early adopters’, the researcher said.
“Early Adopters are always first to purchase and use new technologies and generally set the trend for the broader market to follow, making it crucial for banks to understand how they are performing among this group,” Roy Morgan said.
The six banks with the highest proportion of early adopters among their customer base are all smaller or regional banks, according to the research.
“Teachers Mutual Bank leads with 29.2 per cent of its customers being from this group, which is 56 per cent higher than the population average of 18.7 per cent,” said the researcher.
CBA and ANZ are 7 per cent above average when it comes to early adopters of technology, while Westpac is 8 per cent above average. NAB is 3 per cent below average.
“Among the other major banks there are a number of below average performers, with Bendigo Bank well below average (33 per cent below), Heritage Bank (23 per cent below) and Bank SA (13 per cent below),” said Roy Morgan.
Roy Morgan industry communications director Norman Morris said that while the smaller banks are leading in attracting tech-savvy customers, they are likely to face challenges from better-resourced major banks and fintech ‘disrupters’.
“The success of all players in financial services will not only depend on their ability to attract early adopters but will depend ultimately on moving to the ‘mass market’ stage and ‘market maturity’, where the majority of the population have transitioned to this new era in banking,” Mr Morris said.
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