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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, September 04, 2002

Survey Discloses Bad Service of Domestic Banks

Despite the ever-mounting competition in the banking sector with China's entry of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Chinese banks don't seem to have learnt how to make their consumers more pleased while delivering their service. Only about 10 percent of bank-goers feel satisfied with the service of the domestic banks, an official survey said.


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Despite the ever-mounting competition in the banking sector with China's entry of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Chinese banks don't seem to have learnt how to make their consumers more pleased while delivering their service.

Only about 10 percent of bank-goers feel satisfied with the service of the domestic banks, according to a survey published in the capital-located Beijing Morning Post.

But the percentage of people reportedly unsatisfied with domestic banks' service stands at 20.3, with the remaining marking a so-so to them.

Done by the China Economic Monitoring Center under the State Statistics Bureau, the survey also asks responders to evaluate the professionalism level of domestic banks' clerks, but only 17.6 percent nod a satisfaction.

The most salient complaint seems to be the queue time in banks: 57.9 percent respondents feel dissatisfied with the time spent on the long wait before the bank's counter. Only 5.7 percent say OK.

But the inner environment of banks appears pleasant. There are 41.9 percent of respondents giving a thumb-up to the surroundings in domestic banks.

As for the differentiated services - to categorize the businesses into big-sum item, small-sum item, non-cash business, self-service and finance consulting and offer each a special service division in the bank - taken by some domestic banks, 48.7 percent responders express a kind of support, although there are also 29.7 percent opposing, 21 percent riding the wall, and 0.5 percent refusing to comment.

The proponents think the differentiated services have met consumers' diversified and personalized service demand, with better security and higher efficiency, the survey said.

But to the question of whether China can catch up with their international rivals within five years, the response is quite mixed: Over 36 percent of respondents are very confident with it; 35.7 percent think the chances are rather slim, while 27.6 percent think it hard to say.

Experts have attributed Chinese banks' slow improvement in their service to their monopolistic position in the banking industry.

In spite of such chronic illnesses as the weak profit-making capacity, fragile capital adequacy and highly-packed non-performing debts, Chinese banks, mostly State-owned, still fare seemingly well.

As a measure to increase their profitability (or a step to follow the international norms against the WTO backdrop, according to most domestic banks), domestic banks had attempted to charge depositors a service fee in the past July, which aroused a loud criticism across the country.

The People's Bank of China, the central bank, later ordered a stop of the practice, saying it is against the Banking Law of China.



By PD Online staff Forest Lee


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