Four in 10 businesses in UK are planning to change their banking provider due to the slow support during COVID-19

This is according to official research commissioned by Encompass, the Know You Customer (KYC) RegTech software provider, which found that 41 per cent of companies were looking to make a switch due to poor services during the crisis.

The data, which was obtained via a survey of 200 business decision makers in large and medium sized companies, and conducted by independent polling company Censuswide, also revealed that 42 per cent admitted to waiting over two weeks for a business loan application from their current banking provider. Additionally, 46 per cent have noticed significant delays in their bank’s onboarding process since the start of lockdown.

Almost half (49 per cent) of business decision makers also revealed that their bank has yet to directly offer financial support during the COVID-19 crisis, and 40 per cent agreed that their bank’s online digital services and support around COVID-19 has been poor.

The impact of slow onboarding, application and compliance processes on companies can be severe, and Encompass found that 45 per cent of companies are planning to make redundancies due to a lack of revenue in the coming months.

Wayne Johnson, CEO and co-founder of Encompass, comments:

„The COVID-19 crisis has had a big impact on all sectors of British industry, especially financial services. In fact, many banks are being forced to run a skeleton crew of remote workers, and a number are still operating outdated legacy IT systems, which are unable to cope with the influx in demand for banking services.

This move from on-premises to remote working has underlined the value of Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. Standard, out of the box solutions can be up and running in a matter of days and be easily accessed remotely, via computers or mobile devices, without having to contend with firewall issues – something that has posed a significant challenge to many organisations.

These factors could make all the difference when migrating employees to our ‘new normal’ and ensuring they have the data and systems they need to work effectively at their fingertips.”

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It will be interesting to see the results of a new survey in 12 months time, contacting the same players, to confirm the number of companies that actually change banks, compared to the number that say they will.

History says few will actually change. However, it is an alarm signal for banks.