Assessment of Self-Service Banking in Bangladesh: Are Private Commercial Banks One Step Further Building Customer Centric Model or Becoming Money Making Machines in Market Competition?

Abstract

Customer-relationships have taken center stage in financial services industry worldwide meeting customers’ 21st Century banking-needs where Bangladesh is no exception. Self service banking is an important vehicle for awhile, which now deserves to be evaluated. This study assesses the performance of self-service banking based on opinions of a mixed of 300 PCBs-customers & PCBs-staff with diverse academic background located in Dhaka City. Applying descriptive statistics on selected fifteen factors of the assessment, this study finds overall Weighted Average Score (WAS) to be 3.13, which is below 4.0 in Five Point Likert Scale. Therefore, Self-service banking assessment is not at a satisfactory level in Bangladesh. The overall WAS would have been higher if more favorable responses were given against factors D5, D11, D4, D10, D8, D6, D15 and D7. Since factor D5=1.67 placed the lowest and D7=2.54 placed comparatively higher position but falls within underperformed category of factors, few of them are in critical condition. Among eight critical factors, D11, D10, D6, D7 and D15 can be corrected by having absolute willingness of PCBs with its minimum cost. As a precondition, in this case, PCBs focuses should be shifted from “staying in the game – using self-services as money making machines” to revenue generation – monetization in market competition. Rest of the critical factors may not be corrected without government interventions where the remedies do not solely depend on PCBs itself. It requires dual roles: a) strict government policies in both areas of technology progression & security issues and b) aggressive continuation of PCBs efforts on establishing an operational customer centric model nationwide.

Keywords: Private Commercial Bank, Self-Service Banking, ICT, Hidden Charges & Fees, Online Banking, Operation Management, Corporate Behavior and Research