Customer Experience Emerges as New Battleground in Banking as Standard Chartered, Stanbic Lead – KPMG

 Ghana’s banking sector is entering a more intense phase of competition, with customer experience increasingly overtaking balance sheet strength as the key differentiator among banks.

This is the key finding of the 2025 KPMG West Africa Banking Industry Customer Experience Survey, which reveals a closely contested market across retail, SME and corporate banking segments, even as customer expectations continue to rise.

In the retail banking segment, Standard Chartered Bank retained its position at the top with a Customer Experience (CX) score of 82.9, underpinned by strong digital reliability and transaction security. Zenith Bank followed closely with a score of 82.2, while Stanbic Bank placed third at 81.8.

Prudential Bank ranked fourth with a CX score of 80.4, and Absa Bank completed the top five at 80.2, highlighting the narrowing performance gap among leading retail banks.

The SME banking segment reflected both notable gains and persistent challenges. Access Bank emerged as the leading performer with a CX score of 82.6, narrowly edging out Absa Bank at 82.5. CalBank followed in third place with 82.3, while Stanbic Bank ranked fourth at 81.6. Standard Chartered Bank placed fifth with a score of 81.4.

Despite the strong showing by leading banks, KPMG noted that small and medium-sized enterprises continue to face frustrations related to slow loan processing, complex documentation requirements and lengthy turnaround times.

Corporate banking recorded the strongest year-on-year improvement among the three segments. Stanbic Bank led with a CX score of 88.8, marking a significant increase from 2024 and reflecting stronger relationship management and issue resolution. Ecobank ranked second with a score of 84.5, followed by Absa Bank in third place at 83.7. Zenith Bank and GCB Bank tied for fourth position, each recording a CX score of 82.7.

Overall, the survey points to a clear shift in Ghana’s banking landscape, where digital platforms have become a baseline expectation rather than a competitive advantage.

As experience scores continue to converge across banks, KPMG concludes that the next phase of competition will be defined by speed, effective problem resolution and meaningful personalisation, in a market where customers are becoming increasingly discerning and harder to impress.