KEY POINTS:
Tried to get into your bank website to urgently transfer money and found access blocked because the site is down?
Or been to an A" and been forced to find another because it has run out of cash?
Unreliable technology now rates right up there with disrespect for customers as the main reason for New Zealanders losing trust in banks.
A Unisys Trusted Enterprise survey has 79.4 per cent of consumers listing undependable IT as a negative factor, making it top equal with disrespect for customers.
This disrespect included rudeness from bank staff and the bank sending out large quantities of marketing literature without taking into account the environmental impact.
Unreliable IT included issues such as slow internet banking and ATMs being dirty or having no cash. Protecting corporate assets and prudent fiscal management rated above customer satisfaction in terms of factors that consumers said were very important for building their trust in a bank.
The poll surveyed 967 consumers, and although Unisys is not revealing how each bank rated, the IT services and consulting company said the survey showedthat top-notch technology was increasingly critical to banks' relationships with theircustomers.
Robert Dewar, managing partner of financial services for Unisys Australia and New Zealand, said IT services were "the touch point" for people's interaction with financial institutions, and bank websites especially were "a fundamental ticket to the game".
"Consumer behaviour has very much evolved from using a single channel, just using the branch, or just using the call centre.
"Now people search for information on the web, they transact on the web, they phone the call centre, and they expect the financial institution to understand what their interactions have been and not to have to repeat themselves."
He said consumers saw it as a sign of disrespect if, for example, they were asked for the same informationmultiple times or constantly sent advertising brochures in the mail.
"Just the simple concept of sending out glossy, expensive marketing literature, there's a green issue and a paper issue associated with that."
Banks said the IT results came as no surprise.
"As time becomes increasingly precious, internet banking, ATMs and mobile-phone banking are easy and convenient ways for customers to transact with us," said Wayne Besant, ANZ's manager retail banking.
"Our customers expect these access points to be available at all times and it's our job to deliver on that expectation."
National Bank, the BNZ and Westpac reiterated his comments, Westpac saying the research supported its focus on both face-to-face customer interactions and developing online banking services.
Kiwibank said customers sometimes perceived IT to be unreliable when in fact they were the ones at fault. This was common when people incorrectly entered account numbers during internet transactions.
