In a few days, will start the successive presentations of H1-22 results of banking groups with, in addition to the review of their financial statements, the examination of their capacity to continue attracting new customers, to keep those who are already clients and to increase the net banking income generated by some and by others, and even more. In other words, to complement the static analysis of their recent performance with a dynamic understanding of their capacity to improve it. This is the purpose of the rating of the main European retail banking players that D-Rating has carried out every year since 2017.
The quality of digital performance contributes increasingly to the success on each of thesedimensions:
– Client attraction: the integration of innovative functionalities and the quality of the information available to prospects contribute to developing the attractiveness of the brand; the fluidity of the account opening process optimizes the transformation rate with, and consequentlythe ability to regenerate the customer base, to reduce the acquisition cost and to adjust marketing expenses.
– Client retention: efficiency in the management of day-to-day operations (access to transaction statements, transfers, appointment scheduling), contact channels that are easy to contact and reliable in the answers they provide, help with account (alerting, etc.) and, more globally, with all of the customer’s expenses and income management (account aggregators, categorization of expenses, help in drawing up budget forecasts, etc.) participate in increasing customer loyalty, in reducing recruitment needs, and finally in operating costs control (replacement of human intervention by automated mechanisms for non-essential operations).
– Incremental value generation: Accessing online to information on main banking products proposed by the bank (mortgage loans, pension savings accounts, personal loans, etc.),being able to enter into the subscription process and, if possible, going as far as signing the contract online, make possible to develop incremental income from commissions or interest ratemargins; It is also essential to become the client’s main account (and earn the associated revenues).
Other variables obviously impact the results of the various groups. The level of communication expenses and the incentives offered to new customers by certain banks naturally influence the evolution of their market share; in the same way, the more or less aggressive interest rate margin policy reflects in the volume of banking products distributed.
On the digital dimension, it is striking in any case to note that the four European best performersdistinguished in 2021 (BBVA, Boursorama, Hello Bank! and KBC) present well-balanced profileson the different dimensions of the D-Rating’s « magic triangle ».
There are also very heterogeneous levels performance of banks belonging to the same group, depending on the countries they operate in. The ING Group’s case illustrates this in a telling way. ING Bank Śląski (Poland) ranks in the Top 10 of the 98 banks rated by D-Rating on the conquest and loyalty aspects, but is only ranked 49th, for the ability of its digital assets to foster the generation of incremental value; on this criterion, it is ING Italy that wears the group’s colors best (9th).
The latter’s historical strength is that they remain – significantly – more efficient in terms of entering commercial relationships, but they have been supplanted by their predecessors in terms of « care » and the loyalty it allows, and above all in terms of their ability to generate incremental value.
