TPS Insights
BMI-T Business Electronic Banking Report: 2010
Introduction
BMI-T is an independent external research house which has now entered its 20th year of publication on this particular
report. The research objectives include reporting on the business banking trends pertaining to corporate banking, and
more specific information on each of the electronic banking products offered by the banks.
The data below represents responses from large corporates only i.e. generating revenue in excess of R400 mil. 193 of
these corporates have been interviewed which comprises 38% of the total sample. The largest industry sector from the
total sample was manufacturing at 29% which was significantly larger than any other sector.
Executive Summary
We have increased our market share lead (by “Primary Bank” status) from last year and have again been rated as the
perceived “market leader” by corporates for the 20th year running. FNB was our closest rival in terms of market share in
2006 but has since been losing ground year on year as ABSA and Nedbank have been gaining ground.
More clients have noticed large improvements in our service compared to other banks. Our electronic channel
performance however is currently weaker than our competitors. We have fewer “extremely satisfied” clients on the
systems most important attributes, namely system availability and responsiveness.
Our Sales staff performed relatively well compared to the competition however a clear area for improvement is to
better understand our clients business. We fall well short of ABSA and Nedbank in this regard.
Our strengths are the consistent good service from RMs and TBs. However our competitors have taken big strides
forward in terms of their electronic banking platforms.
Overview

We have achieved 38.4% market share by primary bank for overall banking with our 5 year average being
39.6%. The remaining 3 banks average around 20% each. FNB has been losing market share over the past 5
years and ABSA and Nedbank has shown a steady increase over the same period (see graph below).
TPS Insights
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30% of all clients surveyed perceived Standard Bank as “excellent” in their provision of overall banking. This
was the highest rated bank (FNB 23%, ABSA 20% and Nedbank 18%).
43% of the sample perceives Standard Bank as the market leader for the 20th year running in the “overall
banking service” category. This is followed by ABSA (20%), FNB (16%) and Nedbank (16%). (2009: SB 39%, ABSA
20%, FNB 16%, Nedbank 16%)
30% of clients rated Nedbank as the market laggard in terms of “overall banking”, followed by ABSA 18%,
Citibank 17%, Standard Bank 11%, FNB 8%. Our market laggard percentage has shown a slight upward trend
since 2005.
9% of our clients stated that they have experienced a “high level” of improved service from us in the last year
in terms of overall banking services. We ranked second behind FNB at 17%. (Nedbank 5%, ABSA 2%).
Client Loyalty
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56% of our clients are single banked with us (similar split to other banks). There is a general trend over time
indicating a move towards being single-banked.
Most of our client’s that are multi-banked are using FNB (75%). This is followed by ABSA 47% and Nedbank
28%.
83% of our clients interviewed state we are the market leaders in terms of “overall banking”. This is higher
than any other bank (ABSA 76%, Nedbank 71% and FNB 68%)
1% of our clients stated they are considering a move to an agent bank (FNB 5%, ABSA 3%, Nedbank 3%)
In terms of how often sales staff visits clients from agent banks; we are rated as 3rd most aggressive. Nedbank
ranked 1st, FNB 2nd and ABSA 4th.
Our clients were aggressively approached by FNB (33 visits) and Nedbank (30 visits)
Channel

When looking at “extremely satisfied” responses, we are performing relatively poorly against our clients two
most important system attributes, namely system availability and system responsiveness. We have 20% fewer
“extremely satisfied” clients when compared to Nedbank in terms of system availability and we are ranked last
in terms of system responsiveness.
R400mil + Clients rating BOL on:
% of "extremely
satisfied" responses
Industry
Position
Gap down to 2nd
place / Gap up to
leader
Industry
Average
Usability
66%
1
7% (FNB)
58%
Flexibility
53%
1
1% (FNB)
50%
Value for money
47%
2
-7% (FNB)
45%
Functionality
44%
3
-1% (FNB)
53%
Overall product satisfaction
55%
3
-3% (ABSA)
53%
Convenience
65%
3
-6% (FNB)
64%
Customer service support
61%
3
-7% (FNB)
60%
Security
68%
3
-7% (FNB)
70%
Availability and uptime
48%
3
-20% (Nedbank)
50%
Speed, system response
36%
4
-11% (ABSA)
39%
TPS Insights
2010 sees a reversal in client’s top electronic issues with Accessibility, Responsiveness and Stability being listed as the
top 3. This is in contrast to previous years were Price, Customer service and Support and Flexibility were the top issues.
SB Client
Ranking
"list 3 most important electronic
issues"
SB
Industry Average
Industry
Ranking
1
Accessibility
60%
52%
3
2
Responsiveness
56%
56%
2
3
Stability
54%
59%
1
4
Functionality
53%
48%
4
5
Customer service and support
29%
27%
6
6
Flexibility
29%
32%
5
7
Price
15%
21%
7
Client online needs
The table below shows possible online applications to which many of our clients find “extremely attractive”
If available from your Online Banking Applications, how attractive would the
following services be?
Extremely
attractive %
Real Time Clearing (clearing a transaction in 60 seconds), Real time Gross Settlements
Online exception reporting of non-reconciled transactions (i.e. reporting on
transactions that cannot be processed)
To transact against a total group available balance when making payments rather than
available balance in a particular account
54%
Online viewing of cheques issued/deposited
43%
Consolidated balance reporting
41%
Self profile maintenance
40%
More comprehensive audit trails (and reporting)
38%
To manage the password for your company
32%
47%
44%
Sales
When looking at “extremely satisfied” responses, our Sales staff scored marginally above the industry average for
“knowledge”, “responsiveness”, “quality of solution delivered” and “after sales service”. We do however fall short of
ABSA and Nedbank when it comes to understanding of our clients business (ABSA 38%, Nedbank 37%, SBSA 27%, FNB
21%).
TPS Insights
SBSA Strategic questions [R400mil+ clients only]
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73% of our clients agreed that we understand their working capital cycle well enough to provide them with
relevant advice. We ranked last on this category (Nedbank 83%, ABSA 78%, FNB 77%).
Just 12% of our clients feel that their TBs are exceeding their expectations. This places us joint second with
Nedbank (FNB 16%, Nedbank 12%, ABSA 8%).
78% of our clients stated that they knew the difference between their TB and their RM (ABSA 79%, Nedbank
74%, FNB 71%).
Service Attributes:
Sum of "extremely satisfied" responses by R400mil+ clients on the following Service attributes
SB
Industry
Position
Gap down to 2nd
place / Gap up to
leader
Industry
Average
Understanding my business
28%
3
10% (Nedbank)
31%
After sales service
24%
3
5% (FNB)
22%
Response to queries
25%
2
3% (Nedbank)
23%
Reliability of sales person
31%
2
2% (Nedbank)
28%
Professional knowledge
22%
1
2% (FNB)
20%
Quality of solution delivered
29%
1
6% (Nedbank)
24%
Overall satisfaction with sales person
35%
1
9% (FNB)
27%
User friendliness of documentation
28%
1
4% (ABSA)
23%
Cost of service
16%
3
1% (FNB)
16%
Overall process
25%
2
4% (ABSA)
24%
Training
29%
2
2% (ABSA)
27%
Time taken between closed deal and working system
29%
1
4% (FNB)
25%
Availability
21%
4
19% (Nedbank)
30%
Responsiveness on queries
25%
4
6% (FNB)
27%
Overall service from primary contact
29%
4
3% (FNB)
31%
Knowledge of admin staff
24%
3
9% (FNB)
25%
Sales
Implementation
Call Centre
TPS Insights
Query resolution
21%
3
5% (FNB)
21%
Overall support
28%
2
5% (FNB)
27%
Training on the system
31%
2
4% (Nedbank)
26%
Knowledge of call centre staff
28%
2
3% (FNB)
26%
Minimum downtime
18%
4
5% (ABSA)
20%
System responsiveness
23%
3
5% (FNB)
20%
Rate of Product innovation
27%
1
8% (FNB)
20%
Communication and Product
We're losing 17 - 6 in terms of leading the market in extremely satisfied clients for the 23 categories.
Frequency of Competitors Leading the Market
FNB
9
Nedbank
5
ABSA
3
Total
17
Frequency of Competitors in Second Place
FNB
4
Nedbank
1
ABSA
1
Total
6
Pricing
Various payment options were listed and companies were asked to state how attractive each one was. Below is a
summary of the “extremely satisfied” responses from our clients.
 Flat fee structure (38%), pay per bundle (31%), pay per service (28%), banded payments according to amounts
transacted (21%), payments based on time used (18%)
 Payment options currently used are flat fees (48%), pay per service (30%), pay per bundle (21%), banded
payments (6%), based on time used (3%). Our corporate clients have responded in a very similar fashion.