Mobile most preferred banking channel in Kenya
Nearly seven in every ten bank customers in Kenya prefer using mobile banking channels to access their services, the latest industry survey shows.
The Kenya Bankers 2022 Customer Satisfaction Survey shows that the preference for mobile banking channels surged to 67.8 percent up from the 58.7 percent reported in 2021 at the height of Covid-19 pandemic when lenders embraced digital channels as a means of checking the spread of the disease.
The report adds that Internet banking or online banking is the second most preferred channel in Kenya across the industry at 23.33 percent. Only 17.64 percent of the respondents surveyed said they use bank branches to access banking services while ATMs came fourth at 16.9 percent.
In the industry survey that analyzed over 33,800 responses, both agency banking and card payments or touchpoints came in fifth at 6.1 percent.
Kenya’s financial services industry has experienced steady growth in the last four years of bank customers preferring fully automated or self-service modes such as Mobile, Internet, and Chatbots, when accessing various services.
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In 2022, the customers running one bank account stood at 45.3 percent which is in line with the findings of the 2021 FinAccess survey which revealed that 44.1 percent of Kenyans use banking services.
However, the ownership of two or more accounts contracted to 48.2 percent compared to 62 percent reported a year earlier. The number of Kenyans holding between four and five bank accounts accounted for 5.8 percent, while only 0.7 percent of the respondents are running more than six bank accounts.
In the 2022 survey, Cooperative Bank was ranked best overall for offering the best customer experience with Family Bank coming second. KCB was ranked third overall.
