Roy Morgan Research says early indications are rivals are struggling to win National Bank customers off ANZ

By Gareth Vaughan

Some 415,000 New Zealanders, or about one person in 10, changed banks last year, Roy Morgan Research says, but the firm's not yet able to determine whether many National Bank customers jumped ship after September's announcement that their bank's brand was being swallowed by ANZ.

Roy Morgan says the 415,000 figure (people aged 14 or over) means about 100,000 more New Zealanders changed their main financial institution during 2012 than did so in 2011.

"The proportion of Kiwis who switched their main financial institution in the previous 12 months is now approaching double the 5.9% low in April last year," says Roy Morgan's New Zealand general manager Pip Elliot.

“In such a competitive market, the major banks have for some time been battling to poach customers from each other by promoting the ease and potential benefits of switching," Elliot says. "Many customers, however, will only switch their main financial institution when it comes to ‘moments of truth’, such as the renewal of their mortgage or taking out a new loan."

She notes that the increased switching activity was in  large part due to increased campaigning from all the major banks following ANZ’s culling of the National Bank brand. ANZ confirmed in late September it would phase the National Bank brand out over two years and replace it with ANZ.

Roy Morgan's research shows of those customers who switched from National Bank, about 60% went to ANZ meaning 40% went elsewhere. However, the data includes switchers from within the year prior to ANZ's announcement. Elliot notes ASB has picked up about 9% of switching National Bank customers, Kiwibank and Westpac about 6% each, and BNZ 4%.

“Early indications suggest Westpac’s ‘Is your bank making you blue?’ and Kiwibank’s ‘How to change banks’ commercials have yet to really challenge ANZ’s in-house advantage in retaining the National Bank customers," says Elliot.

Roy Morgan's switching data is based on these two questions: 1) Thinking about all of the financial institutions that you deal with in any way at all, which one do you regard as your main financial institution? And 2) Which one financial institution was your main financial institution 12 months ago?

Roy Morgan says it doesn't have a specific number in terms of how many National Bank customers have left and gone to a bank other than ANZ since the demise of the National Bank brand was announced. The firm says its sample size is too small at this stage to determine this, but will be monitoring movements of National Bank customers and should be able to answer the question of how successful ANZ has been at retaining them once a year has passed since ANZ's announcement.

A new bank switching system was introduced in December 2010. Overseen by Payments NZ which is owned by ANZ, Westpac, ASB, BNZ, Kiwibank, HSBC, TSB and Citibank, it means customers merely need to notify the bank they want to take their business to, fill out a form and sign it, and their existing bank will then hand over all their details, including any direct debit payments, to the new bank which gives them a new account number.

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