In order to measure the digital performance of retail banks, D-Rating – the rating agency specialized in digital transformation, relies on an analysis of 4 distinctive modules.
This preliminary market study on Morocco focuses on the external module « Digital Customer Experience : Presence & Satisfaction ».
It aims to assess and compare the performance of digital channels used by 10 Moroccan retail banks.
The extensive methodology used by D-rating for its module « Digital CX: Presence and Satisfaction » measures the level of digitalization of customers’ touch points and interactions using 160 indicators.
This article will introduce you to the key takeaways on the digitalization journey of Moroccan retail banks and display the final score of the « TOP 3 » performers.
The Moroccan market
Let’s first take a look at few specificities of the Moroccan market. Interesting enough, the literacy rate in Morocco is lower than the world average, but it is not the case for the penetration rates of internet and smartphone, which are more used by the Moroccan population than by the global average population. However, the rate of bancarization (the use of banking systems and accounts by the population) does not follow this tendency and, as shown below, is extremely low when compared to other rates, although we acknowledge that this rate is difficult to estimate accurately.
In Morocco, the web traffic remains today, mainly dominated by desktops, which represent 56% of total traffic, according to « huffpostmaghreb.com ».
This proportion is expected to change in the near future as the number of 4G users are growing dramatically. The National Agency of Telecommunication Regulation has estimated an increase of 38% per year.
In this regard, the Moroccan market should rapidly grow and reach Europe’s pace, where now the mobile web traffic exceeds the one of traditional desktop.
It should be noted that the scores of D-rating, relative to the type of indicator used, are either adjusted to the share of the country’s population using online networks or to the number of clients of each studied bank to allow for a fair comparison between the companies, and between the countries, whatever their respective size are.
The digitalization of the retail banks in Morocco
Regarding the web channel, the first finding is that on average, Moroccans visit almost 10 times less the websites of their banks than their european peers.
Moroccan banks have not succeeded, yet, to establish and sustain a regular relationship with their clients via the digital channels. The strong use of cash might be one of the reasons causing this delay but it is probably not the only factor in the balance.
D-rating has evaluated the features of Moroccan banks websites, according to 44 indicators. As a result, the best performing banks are BMCI, La Banque Populaire du Maroc or CFG Bank.
Regarding the mobile application channel, there is a strong performance contrast between the different banks. On one hand, banks’ mobile application like Al Barik Bank and Attijariwafa Bank have managed to satisfy their clients and obtained on average scores higher than 3,5. However, other banks from the panel still struggle with very low satisfaction levels.
Finally, the same gap sits still for social media channels. Some banks have not even reached this opportunity yet (such as Crédit Agricole du Maroc), even though they are a very valuable source of information to obtain customers feedback, whereas other banks are extremely active. CFG Bank and CIH generate interactions and engagement on Facebook, at the same level as the best European banks present in the area.
The results show that these outperforming banks have succeeded to take advantage of the full potential of social networks and more particularly of Facebook (which has a penetration rate of 63% in Morocco and an average 71% in Europe) and turn this popular media into to a real client acquisition machine.
Top 3 for Web and mobile applications
Two main elements of the digital client relationships are the web and mobile applications.
The web category covers 81 indicators, including functionalities and features available on the public websites, the web traffic and other technical parameters over website performance.
The mobile application category includes 26 scores, related to the client satisfaction on mobile application stores, usage and engagement metrics and technical properties.
The top 3 scores on these two categories are displayed in the charts.
CIH appears on the top 3 web and mobile application and positions itself as the Moroccan bank with the highest level of use of digital channels in its relationship with prospects and clients. The effort made on its digital transformation clearly reflects on its fully-digitalized acquisition process and its multidisciplinary program in open innovation « CIH Open Innovation ».
All these results, based on 160 indicators, conducted on a panel of 10 major retail banks are detailed in the report of D-Rating.
About D-Rating :
Created at the beginning of 2017 with the support of BPI France, D-rating is the first rating agency of companies’ digital performance. D-Rating provides every market stakeholders (buy-side/sell-side financial analysts, asset managers, fund managers and companies) with an independent rating that evaluates a company’s commitment in anticipating the digital transformation in its sector, both internal (transformation of company’s culture, process and tools) and external (digitalization of customer journey, digital footprint). Thanks to its innovative approach that, combining automation and industrialization, serves a data-driven methodology (800+ criteria analyzed), D-Rating is already a standard in the financial services sector.
