Financial service provider ranking: The best banks 2022

Cologne What does the dream house of youth look like? The building society Schwäbisch Hall asked. More than 10,000 young people gave their opinion on how they imagine their ideal home in a survey. The specification: a tiny house with around 20 square meters had to be designed.

The support of influencers on Instagram should bring the necessary reach for the survey. The result: the participants wanted sustainable materials, a roof terrace, a comfortable sofa and the largest possible kitchen.

New customer groups in view

Schwäbisch Hall had already started the survey in 2019 under the name “Tiny House of Trends”. The Bausparkasse then continued the topic with short films on social networks. The Tiny House was equipped with its own photovoltaic system to operate the intelligent building technology. “We reach new and especially young customer groups via social media,” explains Schwäbisch Hall spokesman Sebastian Flaith.

To this day, the Tiny House is an integral part of the Schwäbisch Hall website – a catalog of questions helps online visitors to decide whether living in the smallest of spaces suits them. “In addition to Instagram, we use LinkedIn and Facebook in particular as information channels,” says Flaith.

“We want to bring young people in particular into contact with the topic of building and financing without obligation.” At the same time, the podcast series “Hauschatern” from Schwäbisch Hall gives tips, among other things, for garden maintenance, notary appointments or for saving energy and for renovations in old buildings.

The services arrive. In this year’s ranking of financial service providers by the Cologne-based analysis institute Servicevalue, Schwäbisch Hall is at the top of both building societies and mortgage brokers. In May of this year, Servicevalue obtained more than 47,000 customer ratings on the service quality of 318 companies active in the financial sector for the Handelsblatt. The ranking experts looked at 17 categories. Building societies as a whole took second place here – up two places compared to the previous year. The brokers of construction financing came in seventh place overall.

First place in the category rankings is occupied by the smart payment providers with the best mean value of 2.79. Respondents could choose within a range of grades from 1 to 4. As in the previous year, PayPal enjoys the highest level of consumer trust in the individual rating of the category. The smart payment companies benefit from the fact that customers are increasingly using other financial service providers alongside their house bank. According to a study by the management consultancy Bain, only around half of customers handle their financial affairs solely through their house bank.

In view of the growing competition, the pressure on traditional branch banks to invest in customer loyalty is increasing. “From the customer’s point of view, it is crucial that an issue is resolved as directly, simply and without media breaks as possible. That applies regardless of the channel,” says Nikola Glusac, who heads Bain’s practice group for banks in German-speaking countries. According to Glusac, well-made self-service offers are also well received by customers and make banks more efficient – they are therefore becoming more and more the market standard.

Bridges between analogue and online

It is also important to build bridges between the analogue and digital worlds. “Established banks that do not yet seamlessly integrate their branch and online offerings and create appropriate internal structures and incentives will increasingly fall behind,” says Glusac. He locates advice on complex financial products more in the branch world. Bank advisors on site or in the contact center could then accompany customers when entering the online world when it comes to simple products or services. In general, banks should continue to expand the digital offerings for their customers.

With a service-oriented linking of analogue and digital offers, Glusac believes that the traditional companies can grow in the future. “Satisfied bank customers not only remain loyal to their house bank and use more services,” says the Bain expert. “They also recommend the institute to others.”

In the digital world, intuitive online or mobile banking is critical to success. The importance grows. “More than 90 percent of all routine interactions – from account inquiries to transfers – are now processed via digital channels at retail banks in Germany,” says Glusac. The digital sales deal, on the other hand, is only just beginning and offers great opportunities for financial service providers.

Maximum customer orientation – this applies not only to interaction in the digital space and in the branch. Customer demands on the financial products themselves are increasing. According to a study by management consultants Simon Kucher & Partners, the topic of sustainability for financial services is becoming increasingly important from the customer’s point of view.

44 percent of the more than 10,000 respondents see criteria such as environmental protection or fairness in working conditions as decisive for the investment. This puts financial service providers under pressure. In the Simon Kucher survey, for example, almost 40 percent of those surveyed stated that they would “review their financial service providers for sustainability” in the next few years – eight out of ten would change banks if they did not meet the requirements.

Advantage for specialists

The sustainability banks claim a lead in this field. In this category, Triodos Bank has taken the lead in the current ranking, displacing last year’s winner, GLS Bank. According to Triodos Bank, since it was founded in 1980, it has only promoted projects and investments that are sustainable. “We have a long list of sectors that we don’t work with,” says Triodos spokesman Florian Koss. This includes fossil fuels, nuclear power and armaments – as well as gambling and pornography.

Triodos invests in storage systems for green electricity, infrastructure projects, social facilities, film and culture funding and sustainable real estate. “Many customers come to us because they want to invest their money in an ethical way and at the same time want to achieve something good with it,” says Koss. According to the Triodos website, last year alone 700,000 households worldwide were supplied with green electricity from projects the sustainability bank works with. In addition, the Institute secured funding for the care of 45,000 seniors living in institutions.

In recent years, more and more banks have taken up the cause of the promise of sustainability – but not always rightly so, according to Florian Koss. Some supposedly sustainable investment offers, for example, contain investments in armaments or fossil fuels on closer inspection.

The Triodos spokesman complains that this is greenwashing. “Greenwashing damages the credibility of the entire sector,” he says. “Private money, which is actually supposed to promote sustainable projects, flows into questionable industries – against the will of the investors.”

Triodos believes in transparency. For years, the company has published every single investment – all loans granted are listed on the website. In this way, customers can see where the bank is moving their money. That pays off. Until the corona pandemic, Triodos Bank in Germany was able to record annual growth of between 20 and 30 percent. Most recently it was 14 percent.

The close relationship with consumers is particularly important in uncertain times or crises, explains Schwäbisch Hall spokesman Flaith. “In the first half of the year, we experienced that our customers increasingly called us to get advice on rising inflation and interest rates.”

As a result, many would have preferred the financing for their construction project in the second half of the year or arranged their follow-up financing at an early stage. “We wanted to make it clear to the customer that we are there for them as a point of contact – and that financial decisions of this magnitude should not be taken lightly,” says Flaith.

Many potential house builders are not only struggling with rising interest rates and budgets reduced by inflation. They are also concerned about bottlenecks in building materials and the shortage of skilled workers – there is a risk of massive delays in construction projects. “We advised our customers early on to build in time and financial buffers wherever possible so that they could react flexibly to disruptions – and not get hectic,” says Flaith.

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