Deloitte's US-based global banking boss has unleashed a stinging criticism of retail banking practices, saying major banks are failing to maintain customer loyalty.
Scott Burgess hit out at the slowness of banks to adapt to changing consumers, saying most are failing to improve cross sell arrangements, products and personal service despite claims to the contrary.
"It's staggering to see how little the market has changed. There's a recognition they need to change but there's inertia," Burgess said.
A US study showed the average cross sell is two products per customer, he said.
"Actually that's just a miserable performance."
While banks have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new technologies, customers have not noticed the difference, he added.
"I think we as customers [don't think] the banks understand our needs any better than they did 15 years ago."
Speaking in Sydney on Friday, as part of a tour of the global banking market, Burgess said Australian banks need to take a leaf from their overseas competitors and employ radical strategies to get customers.
This includes employs retail-orientated staff rather than employees from a banking background and creating a customer 'destination' rather than a traditional branch.
Simply opening more branches by reversing the wide scale closures in the 1990s is not good enough,
"I'm an advocate for opening new branches if you can come up with a new model - not traditional branches," he said.
He said in the US half the people who open a new account with a bank close it within 12 months "largely because of the inability to deliver against the customer service promise".
