TD Canada Trust retains top spot, due in part to its single sign-on functionality, integration between banking and brokerage platforms and design consistency between secure and non-secure areas
April 1, 2002 — Traditional Canadian banks are making major headway integrating online banking, brokerage and other related lines of business into long-envisaged one-stop financial services supermarkets, according to Gomez, Inc., the Internet Quality Measurement firm.
GomezCanada’s Q1-2002 Internet Banking Scorecard™ shows an industry progressing on a variety of online fronts, from single sign-on account access and pre-filling of existing customer data through site performance and telephone-based customer service consistency.
“Web channel improvements during the evaluation period were punctuated by the advent of account aggregation services, which enable consumers to gain a cross-institutional view of their financial picture through a single Web interface,” said Guy van Rooyen, senior analyst with GomezCanada. “While Royal Bank of Canada and Laurentian are leading the account aggregation revolution, many other banks have promised to integrate this service into their Web offerings during 2002.”
Moderate movement has been made relative to online mutual fund capabilities (i.e., purchasing, redemption, transfers) that are offered online. Minimal enhancements were made at many sites such as the ability to transfer funds online to another person’s account at the same firm.
“Another industry wide shortcoming: Secure and non-secure site design remains a world apart, creating unnecessary consumer confusion,” said Don Rolfe, managing director for GomezCanada. “For example, Gomez research identified numerous instances where a consumer must exit a secure site in order to apply online for a product/service via the non-secure site.”
TD Canada Trust won the overall category in part due to its single sign-on functionality, integration between banking and brokerage platforms and design consistency between secure and non-secure areas.
Consumer research that complements Gomez Canada’s Banking Scorecard also revealed:
-
A significant increase in Canadians’ concerned about online security. Greater than
50% of the total adult online population. -
Online telephone customer service showed vast improvements since our previous September
2001 Scorecard; e-mail customer service, however, was poor to moderate in our tests. -
Two Gomez profiles, Internet Transactor and One-Stop Shopper dominate the marketplace,
with 46.2% and 34.8% of the total online banker market, respectively. This should provide
ample marketing opportunities for those banks whose online offerings tightly integrate a
broad array of financial services. -
Over 50% of Canadians would like to complete service requests, such as stop payments,
bills payments investigation and cheque ordering online, but few firms offer these capabilities. -
Current promotions are not resonating with consumers because they don’t reinforce
the Internet’s key value proposition: Lower cost, greater efficiency and convenience.
Rankings for the Q1-2002 Internet Banking Scorecard are as follows (previous Scorecard finishes in parentheses):
- TD Canada Trust (1st)
- Royal Bank of Canada (6th)
- Scotiabank (7th)
- Bank of Montreal (4th)
- CIBC (8th)
- Vancouver City Savings (14th)
- Citizens Bank of Canada (3rd)
- Laurentian Bank (2nd)
- HSBC Bank (10th)
- National Bank of Canada (13th)
- President’s Choice Financial (9th)
- Desjardins (5th)
The results for Gomez’s four individual customer profiles were as follows; TD Canada Trust was rated first for Internet Transactor and Saver; Royal Bank took top honors for One-Stop Shopper and Borrower.
Gomez experts assessed bank site usability, utility and performance against more than 200 objective criteria to produce the Canadian Q1-2002 Internet Banking Scorecard. The criteria are related to specific elements of quality in the Internet delivery of service.
About Gomez
Gomez® provides customer experience measurement services to help firms build successful e-businesses. Gomez Performance Network (GPN) is a leading provider of Web page and transaction performance monitoring solutions to Fortune 1000 companies. GPN enables companies to measure the performance of their global Web sites in real-time, enabling them to continuously monitor site availability and responsiveness, worldwide. GomezPro provides actionable research and competitive benchmarking and industry insight to help companies optimize online customer experience relative to consumer expectations, competitive offerings and alternative distribution channels.
Gomez, Gomez.com, GomezPro, Gomez Scorecards, Gomez Performance Network, Performance Media and Internet Quality Measurement are trademarks and/or service marks of Gomez, Inc.
