The research was conducted between September 2023 and August 2024 by DataEQ for its annual SA Banking Sentiment Index, which was published on Wednesday. The reported studies how customers perceive South African banks and is based on 3.3 million social media posts.
"South Africa's banking industry continues to lead as the most positively spoken-about industry in the country. Despite a four percentage point decline in Net Sentiment from 2023, the industry maintained an overall positive sentiment score of 20," DataEQ said in a statement about the research results.
"This strong performance saw banking outperform the retail, insurance and telecommunications industries according to consumer Net Sentiment," it said. Among the seven countries analysed by DataEQ, South Africa ranked first in banking Net Sentiment, followed by Botswana, Kenya, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the UK.
Discovery was followed by FNB and Absa in the operational rankings, with both banks earning praise for innovative features and staff service, DataEQ said.
"Fraud conversations were also a major driver of industry risk, with 14 of all risk-related discussions referencing fraud complaints, including unauthorised transactions and delays in query resolution, highlighting the industry's struggle to address these risks effectively. The lack of compliance with Treating Customers Fairly TCF principles, particularly regarding performance and service issues, further underscored governance vulnerabilities across the industry."
