The Roy Morgan Consumer Banking Satisfaction Results for July showed overall satisfaction declined marginally, falling to 82.1 per cent, but remains close to the record high of 82.2 per cent set in June.
In the six months to July 2014, CBA maintained its leading position among the big four banks with an 81.5 per cent satisfaction level.
The satisfaction levels of the four major banks grew much closer in July, however, with CBA holding only a 1.3 per cent lead ahead of Westpac’s satisfaction level of 80.2 per cent.
This was followed by NAB, with a satisfaction rating of 80 per cent, and ANZ, with a satisfaction level of 79.2 per cent.
Westpac saw the greatest improvement in the bank's satisfaction levels, with satisfaction amongst its customers rising 0.3 percentage points. This was followed by ANZ, which saw an increase of 0.1 percentage points.
NAB and CBA both saw a decline in satisfaction, with their ratings falling 0.4 percentage points and 0.6 percentage points respectively.
The two banks lost ground among both their home loan customers and non-home loan customers.
The satisfaction levels of the four major banks, however, are well below that of other banks, building, societies and credit unions.
The four major banks had a satisfaction rating of 80.5 per cent overall while building societies had a satisfaction level of 91.6 per cent, credits unions had a rating of 90.8 per cent, and mutual banks, foreign banks and other banks all had an average rating above 85 per cent.
Roy Morgan Research's director of industry communications, Norman Morris, said while satisfaction with the big four banks has increased significantly over the past 13 years, the results show there is still room for improvement.
Mr Morris said smaller competitors are outperforming the major banks “on a number of important dimensions in relation to fees and charges, interest rates and treatment of customers”.
He said there were two groups in particular that were particularly unsatisfied with the major banks.
“These groups are business customers and the top-value quintile personal customers, both of which have big potential for business growth but are far less satisfied than the lower-value customers and as such should increasingly become the focus of improving satisfaction levels,” said Mr Morris.
