Greater Bank is currently Australia’s most trustworthy bank. This was the finding of Research Platform, Glow, that surveyed 1,250 Australians over the past three months in relation to 31 banks.
The second quarterly results of the Australian Banking Brand and Trust Index showed that second-tier banks are viewed as the most trustworthy banks in Australia, with Greater Bank achieving the highest Net Trust Score of +23 (on a scale from -100 to +100) and shifting up three places over the past quarter.
Greater Bank finishes well ahead of the big four banks who placed well down in the rankings; NAB (+7 - 22nd), CommBank (+7 - 23rd), ANZ (+6 - 24th) and Westpac (+3 - 29th) respectively.
Greater Bank CEO, Scott Morgan, said the results of the independent survey were exceptionally pleasing and highlights this business’ commitment and dedication to serving the needs of its customers.
“Trust is built on a reputation of consistently providing customers with comfort and security in knowing you are doing the right thing by them. We aim to do this every day by putting our customers at the heart of all our decision making,” Scott said.
“There has been no greater need for trust in the banking sector than now as we all endure these exceptionally difficult times as a result of COVID-19." Scott Morgan, Greater Bank CEO.
“From the outset of the crisis, we wanted to reassure to our customers that we are there for them. We did this by launching our COVID-19 hardship support, which has now been approved for more than 1200 personal and home loan customers, and almost 50 business customers.
“Our support went beyond that though, as we redeployed staff from branches to the customer contact centre to meet the growing demand for support through these channels.
“While we are seeing positive signs from all levels of government in regard to winding back some of the social restrictions, the fact remains that the financial pressure and economic lag will continue. With that, our customers can place their trust in us to be there for them over the journey.”
Tim Clover, CEO and Founder at research platform Glow which has developed the Index, said that the COVID-19 crisis has provided banks with the ideal opportunity to raise their trust levels as the government has asked them to relax some requirements particularly related to the payment of the JobKeeper subsidy along with the halting of mortgages for hundreds of thousands of Australians.
“Many recent studies have confirmed that consumers expect brands to help the community right now. Banks, even more so, have a huge role to play in extending forgiveness, lines of credit and supporting small businesses,” Tim said.
About Glow: Glow is a SaaS market research technology platform that makes rapid, robust and cost-effective data insights more accessible to businesses and professionals. Through an integrated and simple research workflow, and with data integrations with the world’s leading panel providers, Glow accelerates speed-to-insight in a cost-effective way as part of its mission to democratise access to quality tools, data and insights.
About Australian Banking Brand and Trust Index (ABBTX):
Study Overview - The Australian Banking Brand and Trust Index is a tracking study that commenced fieldwork in December 2019. It measures key attributes that assist industry participants by tracking key measures of operational success, as well as that of their competitors.
Fieldwork - The study is conducted online using the Glow platform. Panellists are sourced from Dynata, the world’s foremost consumer panel provider.
Collection dates and sample sizes –
Wave 1: 24-30 Dec 19, 1233 responses
Wave 2: 24-28 Mar 20, 1250 responses
Sample - nationally representative, 18+.
Weighting - Responses are weighted according to age, gender and location, using Australian Bureau of Statistics’ catalogues #3101 and #1410.
About Net Trust Score: Respondents are asked to rate how much they trust each bank they are aware of to do what is right. We use a bipolar 11-point scale to measure both trust and distrust within the single question. To create our Net Trust Score, we assign a score to each rating, such that the further from the centre, the larger the score (both positive and negative). The best analogy is that of a seesaw, where the distance from the centre has a bearing on the effective weight, such that polarized views carry more weight than neutral ones. Using this methodology, the highest attainable score is 100, while the lowest is -100.