South Africans are threatening to close their bank accounts

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Sarah Lamb, head of client service at DataEQ talks about Capitec Bank is at risk of losing customers – and if customers make good on their threats to close their accounts and leave, banks like Discovery Bank stand to be the biggest winners.

This is one of the key findings from the latest DataEQ Banking Sentiment Index.

The index is based on over 4 million consumer social media posts about South African banks from 1 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. DataEQ then analysed posts for sentiment and conversation themes.

One big area analysed by the group is churn – the movement of banking customers from one bank to the next – where the analysis of conversation topics looked specifically at author intent.

Acquisition intent speaks to the purchase intent of consumers – ie, customers looking to join a bank – while cancellation intent tracks the threads made by current customers to leave a specific bank, DataEQ said.

The net score – derived by subtracting the acquisition intent from cancellation intent – indicates how likely a bank will see customers leaving or entering their business (churn).

Using this metric, DataEQ’s data shows that among the major banks, Capitec, FNB and Standard Bank are the most likely to see customers leave, with the other banks being more likely to gain new business.

Here, Capitec is the biggest potential loser with a net intent score of -1.7%, while Discovery stands to get the most business with a net intent score of +6.5%.
8 Dec 2022 10AM English South Africa Business News · Investing

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