Factors contributing to bank selection choices: a generation theory perspective

Abstract

In South Africa retail banking has become a highly competitive industry with 14 locally controlled banks, six foreign controlled banks, and 13 branches of foreign banks and numerous representative offices of foreign and mutual banks. To attract the target market and operate in this competitive environment, banks would profit from a sharp understand-ing of the bank selection criteria that clients consider valuable when selecting a bank. The fulfilment of customer wish-es requires that companies understand which aspects of their product and services are most valued by the customer. Literature has already revealed that value will remain the benchmark against which financial service providers are measured. What constitutes value for customers is the question at stake in this work. It is equally important to under-stand how customers from different generation backgrounds select a particular bank in order to design an effective segmentation strategy. It is against this background that this work poses the following questions: What are the factors that influence bank selection? How are these factors different for customers from different generation backgrounds?