Capitec tops in e-banking

Absa is the worst and Capitec the best in online banking, a survey released yesterday revealed.

FNB, voted best in the previous year's survey, dropped to second place, despite launching a new online platform since the last poll.

The survey, conducted by online marketing research agency Columinate, assesses Absa, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank and Standard Bank against a number of criteria, such as ease of use, information and quality, trust, innovation, device flexibility, reasonable banking fees, and communication and assurance.

Capitec came out tops because of its combination of a simple and affordable e-banking experience, said Columinate CEO Henk Pretorius.

Standard Bank was in third place, Nedbank fourth and Absa last, with a satisfaction rating of only 39%, compared to Capitec's score of 71%.

Banking habits also seem to be changing, and desktop and laptop use is dipping.

Of the almost 1 400 "e-bankers" surveyed this year, 96% said they access internet banking from a laptop or desktop, down from 99% in each of the past two years.

More than three out of every five e-bankers now use their cellphones, up from 42% two years ago. And nearly a third now use their tablets, compared to 10% in 2012.

Though quite a lot of South Africans share their internet bank accounts with other people, no bank caters specifically for this practice, according to Columinate.

Three out of every 10 respondents indicated that they share accounts.

And parents brave enough to give their passwords to their children have increased from 7% to 16% of those who share accounts.

Almost all e-bankers use the service to make payments, but the use of other services, such as purchasing airtime (59%), data (37%) and prepaid electricity (29%) are becoming more popular.

"FNB continues to dominate in this particular area, with 33% of its online banking customers making use of 15 or more features on its site, compared to the other four banks which have their highest audience using between five to nine other service features," said Pretorius.