UK: Businesses see lack of competitiveness in the banking sector

According to data from the Business Banking Insight (BBI), an independent website which looks at how well 15,000 of the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses are being served by banks and other finance providers, this decision could be a result of a lack of competitiveness in the banking sector.

Results show that 85% of all businesses said they were ‘not very likely’ or ‘not at all likely’ to switch provider in the same time period. Research also found that 14% of companies (one in seven) are ‘quite likely’ or ‘very likely’ to switch to a different business current account in the next six months.

The same study unveiled that 85% of businesses believe customer experience is important when they are choosing a bank, while businesses gave the provider of their business current account a satisfaction rating of between 59% - 68%, depending on the size of business.

Findings further indicate that 69% of respondents felt that access to online banking services was very important for their business compared to 52% who said that in-branch interaction was very important to their business and 41% of businesses who said that telephone services were very important to the operation of their business.

The survey also revealed that the larger the organisation, the more likely it was to place high importance on online access to their business current account. This finding was the same for telephone services, with the 58% of mid-sized firms citing that this was ‘very important’, compared to 38% of sole traders.

The survey was commissioned by the Chancellor in conjunction with the Federation of Small Businesses and British Chambers of Commerce.