Customers of small banks most satisfied

More bank customers are happy with the level of service they are receiving, with customers of smaller banks the most satisfied, according to Consumer magazine's annual banking survey.

Consumer said the survey showed people wanted a comprehensive internet banking service, but also wanted banks to offer personal one-to-one service.

All banks in the survey showed improvement in the percentage of "good" or "very good" scores from customers.

PSIS, Bank Direct and TSB took the top three spots for overall performance, albeit from a small pool of respondents -- 141, 40 and 321 respectively.

Kiwibank, in just its second appearance in the Consumer survey, was level pegging with two of the country's biggest banks, ASB and National Bank, in fourth spot.

Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) was next followed by Westpac and ANZ.

Coming in last was HSBC, in its inaugural showing in the survey. Customers wanted the bank to offer a credit card and more branches.

Satisfaction rankings for the banks' internet banking performances differed from the overall ratings. Specialist internet bank, BankDirect, topped the internet poll, followed by ASB. Consumer said most of the other banks' internet services rated so closely there was little statistical difference between them. TSB which ranked highly in overall performance, was ranked last in the internet portion of the survey.

The survey was carried out in September and October last year with 7600 respondents.

- NZPA