Germany Retail Banking - Competitor Benchmarking, 2021-2025

This report benchmarks the leading incumbent banks in the German retail banking market, comparing their financial performances, market shares, and customer satisfaction data, among other key performance indicators.

The low-interest-rate environment means that banks in Germany could not increase their net interest margins for 2020 as most banks saw decline or no change. Impairments and non-interest income increased across most providers between 2019 and 2020. Meanwhile cost-to-income ratios increased (with the exception of Deutsche Bank), likely driven by increased investment in digital strategies, but the impact of these strategies has not been seen across many net satisfaction scores yet. Looking at retail deposit market shares, all banks except for Sparkassen have made meaningful gains since 2010. Residential mortgage growth has been varied across the market, while Deutsche Bank has seen the most significant increase in credit card market share.

Scope

• ING-DiBa and Deutsche Kreditbank both recorded the highest average score for satisfaction at 68%, while Postbank has the lowest at 48%.
• Across consumers’ three most important attributes (resolving problems easily, easy-to-understand products, and helpful staff), Postbank and HypoVereinsbank were among the lowest for satisfaction. The top three areas of importance all show how transparency and simplicity are what German respondents are looking for the most, which suggests an apparent problem around providing customers with the simplicity and transparency that they require from the lowest-scoring providers.
• There is a strong correlation between net promoter scores (NPSs) and average bank scores across satisfaction: ING-DiBa, Deutsche Kreditbank, Comdirect, and Norisbank have strong NPSs in Germany as well as the highest overall average bank scores. Thus, improving satisfaction in certain areas will likely lead to more promoters.

Reasons to Buy

• Gain an understanding of which banks in the German market are performing best and will continue to do so.
• Discover which banks are under threat and perceived as being behind the curve by customers.
• Understand the German retail banking landscape and establish how it may develop based on the key performance indicators included.