Agusto & Co has ranked StanbicIBTC as the “Best Digital Bank in Nigeria”. UBA, Access and First Bank followed, not necessarily in order [Update: I have some concerns on this report]. The biggest revelation is GTBank which came fifth. Of course, GTBank is losing what made it the most beloved, accelerating its cap along the way. It needs to get itself together fast with the regular system down issues.
Akinola, who said the survey took five months and ended in August, listed the 10 banks, which the research focused on to include Access, Diamond, Ecobank, Fidelity, First Bank, GTB, Stanbic, UBA, Union and Zenith.
The four banks, which were however rated best include Stanbic IBTC, UBA, Access and First Bank. Out of these four, Stanbic IBTC scored the highest point, emerging the ‘Best Digital Bank in Nigeria.’ GTB ranked fifth in the survey, while Ecobank was placed 10th.
Akinola noted that the ‘5 Star’ rating assigned to StanbicIBTC Bank reflected ease of use, perceived security and very good troubleshooting & IT resolution on its different digital platforms.
According to her, from respondents’ views, StanbicIBTC has the most ease in navigating through primary platforms used such as mobile app, or web.
When you visit a digital bank and its products are creating more complaints, it gets into paralysis. It is a killer as you now “serve” customers without charging fees since you are fixing complains! Digital scales your troubles, pushing you to now have crowded bank halls purely to fix frictions which poor digital service created.
More than 98% of digital startups we work with in my practice have accounts with StanbicIBTC. That tells you how StanbicIBTC is winning as GTBank struggles with what I called Inversibility Construct: reversing physical experience in the digital space. It did it immensely, in the past (as I have noted many times), but lately the technology has not been operating smoothly.
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Update
These are some comments from LinkedIn on this piece.
- All Nigerian banks (Union Bank inclusive) are trying to catch up with the digital transformation, albeit there is not so much of a difference in the digital services each of them offers, but for the sake of position, I give it to Stanbic IBTC .
GTB used to be prime movers in delivering digital banking services, but ever since they became a marketplace with no defined trajectory, and dull in responding to customer complaints, they lost their place.
2. I have only GTBank account and I do everything online. I will not have basis for comparison with other banks. But GTBank is losing it gradually. Not surprised though, as they have 1001 services online. It’s gone beyond banking to more of a platform. Though that is supposed to be an advantage if we’ll harnessed
[This is the quote referred here: To “create a platform and partner anybody who has a service to offer. So that if as a customer, one comes into our ecosystem, you can do just anything. You could do your banking business, buy your tickets, insurance, travel; if you wanted a 10-day pay day loan, you can do it. So, really we want you to come into our ecosystem, maybe five times a day to do different things other than banking.” GTBank CEO]
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