Report rates GTB, FirstBank, Zenith high in digital banking

A THREE months research and analysis carried out on the Nigerian banking industry, has placed Guaranty Trust Bank ahead of other banks in terms of the highest customer traffic on its website in the country.

The research titled: “Digital Insights on the Nigerian Banking Industry”’, was conducted by Terragon Group, a digital media company in Africa.

Terragon Group said the research focused on key activities carried out by the banks utilizing digital media, their innovations and what impact these activities have on their overall business achievements.

The report concentrated on elements of their presence online, providing insights on website traffic, search engine optimization, bounce rate, web mentions, social media assets, mobile speed and user experience.

Terragon’s findings saw GTBank, Zenith Bank and First Bank lead the pack for the website country ranking, while the websites of GTBank and Fidelity Bank were adjudged the most engaging.

According to it, the metric showed the popularity of the banks on Google search engine and disclosed that GTBank has witnessed a steady growth followed by First Bank and Zenith Bank, while other are Access, Diamond, UBA, Skye, Sterling, Fidelity and FCMB in that order.

In terms of amount of traffic each bank gets from different digital channels, while GTB recorded 70 per cent in terms of direct; 30 per cent in referrals and nine per cent in terms of search and below 10 per cent in terms of mail and display; Zenith bank is second with 68 per cent (direct), 28 per cent (referrals), 14 per cent (search); First Bank is next with 66 per cent (direct), 15 per cent in (referrals), 20 per cent in (search). Access Bank recorded 63 per cent in (direct), 24 per cent in (referrals) and 21 per cent in (search).

Terragon explained that referral traffic is the segment of traffic that arrives on the website through another source, for instance, through a link on another domain.

In terms of number of times these financial institutions have been mentioned on the web and social media from the month of May 2015 till the research was completed, Terragon observed in the report that First Bank had 4, 738 mentions; GTB 3, 852; Access Bank 2, 598; Zenith Bank 1, 853 and Diamond Bank 1, 768.

In terms of activities on the social media, GTB recorded 57 per cent and 42 per cent on Twitter and Facebook respectively. Zenith saw 54 per cent activities on Twitter and 42 per cent on Facebook; First Bank saw 95 per cent activities on Twitter and two per cent on Facebook, same for Diamond Bank and Access Bank.