Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) Limited has been named as the most customer-focused bank in Ghana in a survey conducted by KPMG on customer satisfaction in Africa’s banking industry in 2012.

Similarly, Guaranty Trust Bank plc, Nigeria, and Guaranty Trust Bank, Sierra Leone, also emerged tops in their respective countries, making the GT Bank group dominate in the area of customer satisfaction in West Africa, the survey report revealed.

Following in order is Zenith Bank, UT Bank, Cal Bank, Bank of Africa and Fidelity Bank. The rest are SG-SSB, UBA, Prudential Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

In contrast to the top-two banks, UT Bank is an indigenous bank that was previously a non-bank financial services provider until 2008 when it acquired a majority stake in another local player - BPI Bank. The top three banks are all relatively new to the market and thus have been working hard to win over customers from the older banks, while also targetting the unbanked population.

The survey was conducted across 14 countries in Africa between June and December of 2012, with the exception of Nigeria and Zambia where it was conducted earlier in 2012. Countries surveyed include Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The rest are Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Customers surveyed were asked to judge their banks across five key areas that hold the greatest influence over customer satisfaction: customer care; convenience; transaction methods and systems; pricing; and products and services. In the case of Ghana, GT Bank ranked first in all these five key areas.

UT Bank came second in three categories - customer care, convenience, and transaction methods and systems - while Zenith Bank placed second in two - pricing, and products and services.

Zenith also placed third in customer care and convenience, with Bank of Africa coming third, too, in transaction methods and systems, and pricing. CAL Bank was ranked third in the products and services category.

GT Bank, with its multi-country presence in West Africa, has succeeded in replicating high service delivery performances across all the markets it plays in. The success can be partly attributed to the bank’s strong knowledge of the local market and its leveraging of technology in the delivery of superior customer satisfaction, the report said.

Managing Director of GT Bank Ghana Lekan Sanusis explained that after a rigorous and painstaking exercise, the bank eventually came up with a five-year plan - the dominant theme of which was aimed at deepening its unrivalled customer service delivery; reorganising marketing functions to make them more focused and sharper in the market place; and also intensifying existing relationships.

Consequently, the bank grew its pre-tax profit by about 140 percent, rising from GH¢20million in the previous year to GH¢50million in December 2012.

Reacting to news of the bank having been cited in the KPMG report as the Most Customer-focused Bank in Ghana, Mr. Sanusi reiterated that “the most manifesting explanation has been our customers who continued to show growing confidence in our franchise, and this was evident in the increased rate of customer sign-ons in 2012 and the number of new customers that came through referrals from existing customers.”

He added: “This news is a general testimony of our customers on their expectation of what is expected of us, and we shall endeavour to further deepen our customer service delivery to the highest level.”

In the seven years of its existence in Ghana, GT Bank has established itself as an icon in the banking industry, especially in the delivery of superior customer service.

It was adjudged Bank of the Year in Ghana two consecutive times in 2009 and 2010, winning alongside key category awards in the areas of Customer Care, IT/Technology, Product Innovation, Advisory Services, Competitive Pricing, and Loan Financing.

The bank presently operates from 24 locations spread across the country. It has also deployed over 40 ATMs in key locations to serve its customers and the general public.

The inaugural KPMG Africa-wide Banking Industry Customer Satisfaction Survey interviewed 25,000 respondents in person across the 14 countries. A key consideration in selecting the sample size was the banking population of each country, and survey locations were selected based on the level of commercial activity and density of bank branches.