New report shows customers prefer online banking

According to Roy Morgan Research's Single Source survey of more than 50,000 people, the number of bank customers who used a website or mobile device for banking in a four-week period has grown to 62.2 per cent this year, up from 58.6 per cent in 2013.

On the other hand, 32 per cent had used a traditional branch, down from 35.5 per cent two years ago. In addition, only 6.6 per cent said they had used a personal adviser or banker, down from 8.4 per cent.

As more customers are going online for their banking needs, the level of satisfaction with internet banking has lifted to 90 per cent.

Leading the pack is Suncorp, with a 93.3 per cent satisfaction score. The only banks to receive less than 90 per cent satisfaction were ANZ (89.9 per cent), St George (88 per cent) and Westpac (87.9 per cent).

Normal Morris, Roy Morgan's industry communication director, said: "With the rapid growth in internet banking, it will become more important that satisfaction with this channel will need to be monitored against competitors and with other methods for dealing with banks if this lead is to be sustained.

"A great deal of attention is currently being paid to overall satisfaction and advocacy across the banking industry, but this needs to be expanded to looking at satisfaction at the channel level as this is likely to impact overall satisfaction."

He added: "It is worth noting that clearly the highest users of website internet banking are the high-value customer, i.e. the top 20 per cent [top quintile] that controls 63 per cent of the total market value of financial services.

"Nearly three quarters of this high potential group conduct internet banking using the website, making it imperative to understand functionality needs, reliability and satisfaction with this critical segment."