UAE Banks Federation launches trust index study
DUBAI, October 19, 2015
The UAE Banks Federation, the professional representative body for the UAE’s banks, has launched an independent study commissioned with Brunswick Insight and Ipsos Observer to track the level of trust among the country’s banking customers.
The results of this study will form the basis of a trust index deriving from further surveys in future.
The results of the first survey showed that about 70 per cent customers in the UAE have a high level of trust in their banks, especially compared to customers in other international banking markets, and that UAE banking customers are five times more likely to say their view of banks has improved rather than worsened in the past six months.
It was based on responses from 1,040 adults with bank accounts who are resident in the UAE.
The survey was conducted in August and the sample of respondents reflected a representative cultural and gender mix. The interviews were conducted using a variety of channels to ensure an optimum level of representativeness.
It found that while banks can do more to understand customers’ needs, to offer them products that they want, and to offer more reasonable fees and charges, only about 23 per cent of expatriates believe banks at home are better than those in the UAE.
AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, chairman, said: “As the organisation which advocates best practice for banks in the UAE, the Federation has a duty to gauge whether the efforts that banks make to meet their customers’ needs are effective and being felt by their customers.
“More importantly, we want to know where the banks need to up their game, from the point of view of their customers. This project forms the beginning of a process whereby we will be able to better understand whether we are improving our service performance or not, and how we can pinpoint the actions that need to be taken.”
“While we are delighted to see that these results bear out our own expectations, we accept that there is still room for improvement, not least in terms of giving customers what they really want, and in delivering it in a way that provides them with the best value”, he said.
The findings of the survey were presented to the recent meeting of the Federation’s CEO Advisory Council, and agreement was reached on an action plan to communicate the outcome of the survey and to address areas identified in which the banking sector can improve its reputation among its customers.
Most of the UAE banking customers questioned have confidence in banks to behave responsibly and trusted banks to do what is right, said the survey.
In terms of top of mind responses about their banks, customers placed good customer service, loans and safety and security significantly ahead of excessive interest rates, high profits and poor customer service, it said.
Majorities of consumers felt that banks are dealing well with a variety of issues facing the sector, especially keeping up with digital innovations (78 per cennt), responding to new regulations (71 per cent) and preventing cybercrime (71 per cent).
An International trust barometer carried out by an independent agency (Edelman), stated that the UAE came fourth with a rating of 81 per cent, after Indonesia, China and India.
This barometer has an average median of 53 per cent, and countries such as the US (51 per cent), UK (32 per cent) and Australia (51 per cent) fail to meet the average ranking. - TradeArabia News Service
