KARACHI: In Pakistan around 82 per cent of bank consumers visit their branches once every few months after opening accounts while 73 per cent customers are inclined towards using digital banking channels to meet their financial needs and obligations, a survey released recently said.

PwC, in partnership with A.F. Furguson & Co, in its survey tilted ‘Banking in the digital age: exploring Pakistan’s potential’, gathered perspective of 1,000 plus individuals with diverse age demographics, income brackets, employment/business backgrounds, across different geographies to analyse how they like to interact with their banks, use branches or alternate channels and how receptive they are to new age banking.

The survey found growing usage of alternate channels. 84pc respondents said they preferred to use ATMs, 67pc mobile banking, 55pc internet banking and just 17pc use phone banking.

It was revealed that 86pc individuals use mobile banking for fund transfer and 85pc for account balances. 75pc used this medium for bill payments and only 17pc for location-based discount.

Survey finds millennials and Gen Z are the most sensitive regarding ‘time to serve’

The age group breakup revealed that 76pc individuals in their 30-39 years use internet banking and 57pc internet banking while 81pc and 64pc individuals in 40-49 years used it respectively.

Millennials and Gen Z were the most sensitive regarding ‘time to serve’.

Over 70pc respondents of the survey in the age bracket of 20-49 years said they have downloaded their mobile banking apps and 75pc of them said they use it either daily or twice a week.

Around 84pc individuals in the same age bracket either visit the branch once in a few months or only visited once to open their accounts. Of them 95pc go for dispute resolution followed by 79pc for depositing cash, 76pc for cheque deposit, 72pc for bill payment, 64pc for cash withdrawal, and 84pc for fund transfer.

However, there were many concerns highlighted by the survey as 66pc respondent blamed the ‘time to serve’ as the main factor that discouraged them to visit their branches followed by 20pc complained non-facilitative staff and 17pc found employees not knowledgeable and only 11pc pointed finger to ambience.

It was also found out that 74pc preferred online marketplaces, 54pc brands’ online websites and 17pc social media platforms for online purchase of goods and services.

The survey results also found a higher tendency of payments through cards — debit and credit. Around 90pc respondents said they would like to use cards. However, 34pc said they make payments 4-6 times in a week while 24pc at least once in a week.

Switching their primary bank to digital channels, the 57pc survey respondents cited customer care, 35pc service agility, 38pc attractive mobile banking proposition, 39pc value added product features, 44pc international acceptance, 37pc rewards and 35pc cited security as key factors.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2021