British Bank Awards 2019: Winners

With over 27,000 customers sharing their feedback, voting in the British Bank Awards once again proved to be competitive, with banking goliaths, FinTech titans, building societies (big and small), and suppliers all competing to take home a British Bank Award in 2019.

The voting process delivered a few surprises too. So, without any further ado, here’s the list of 2019 winners:

Best British Bank (sponsored by Aventus): Starling Bank

Innovation of the Year (powered by Bud): Mojo Mortgages

Customer Service Champion: Dudley Building Society

Treating Customers Fairly Champion (sponsored by Telrock): Close Brothers Savings

Best Newcomer: evestor

Best Banking App: Monzo

Best Current Account Provider: Starling Bank

Best Mortgage Provider: NatWest

Best Specialist Mortgage Provider: Darlington Building Society

Best Mortgage Broker: Mojo Mortgages

Best Credit Card Provider: Virgin Money

Best Savings Provider: Vernon Building Society

Best Business Banking Provider: Starling Bank

Best Business Finance Provider: Nucleus Commercial Finance

Best Investments Provider: WiseAlpha

Best Personal Finance App: Chip

Best Personal Loan Provider: Zopa

Best Alternative Finance Provider: Satago

Best Travel Money Provider: WeSwap

Best Share Trading Platform: Freetrade

The Pioneer Award: Bud

RegTech Vendor of the Year: DueDil

Technology Vendor of the Year: DPR

Consultancy of the Year: 11 :FS

Michael Fotis, Founder of Smart Money People said, “The British Bank Awards have one simple aim. To highlight the firms delivering high customer satisfaction. This may be firms with innovative products and services, as well as firms with tried and tested business models. This year, it’s been particularly pleasing to see more customers passionately engaged in the voting process, and willing to tell us what they like as well as what could be better.”

Starling Bank took home three awards on the night, ‘Best British Bank’, ‘Best Business Banking Provider’ and ‘Best Current Account Provider’. This is the second year that Starling Bank has taken home ‘Best British Bank’, quite a coup for a bank that only launched in the last few years. Arch rival Monzo was awarded ‘Best Banking App’.

"Winning these awards is recognition of the hard work of the Starling team; it also reflects the enthusiasm of our customers to drive long term and meaningful change in banking. We are thrilled to win these awards and grateful to the customers who voted for us," Anne Boden founder and chief executive of Starling Bank.

Cheshire based newcomer Mojo Mortgages, took home two awards, including the much coveted ‘Innovation of the Year (powered by Bud)’, while the voting process also proved to be favourable for the UK’s building society sector, with the awards for ‘Best Savings Provider’, ‘Best Specialist Mortgage Provider’ and ‘Customer Service Champion’ awarded to regional building societies.

Four firms were able to retain their categories for another year. These firms are: Zopa (Best Personal Loan Provider), Virgin Money (Best Credit Card Provider), WeSwap (Best Travel Money Provider) and WiseAlpha (Best Investments Provider).

Alongside our list of winners, today we’re publishing our Banking League Table 2019 which rounds-up the customer satisfaction scores seen across Smart Money People in the past 12 months.

Banking customers are, on the whole, a little happier.

Overall, customer satisfaction across banking in 2019 edged up slightly to 84%, from 83% in 2018, a sign that more competition and service improvements within large high street banks is translating into happier customers.

RBS and Barclays saw the biggest gains, with TSB, Lloyds Bank, and Tesco Bank emerging as the biggest fallers. No change was reported for six banks. A special mention goes to NatWest which has seen its position rise steadily over the last few years, and now finds itself in fifth spot. In 2018 it was sixth, and in 2017 it was seventh. Conversely, Tesco Bank has been in steady decline for the last three years.

The importance of providing good digital banking experiences is highlighted further by data from Smart Money People, which shows that the way consumers prefer to bank is changing fast, with 2018 emerging as the first year that mobile apps became the preferred channel for day to day banking (39% of consumers now prefer mobile apps). Digital channels (apps and online banking) are now preferred by 78%. Branch-based banking is preferred by just 11% of the population, although 24% of customers aged 65+ still prefer branch-based banking.

About the British Bank Awards

Launched in 2014, the British Bank Awards aim to find the best products, hottest innovation and most trusted financial brands and are voted for by the customers of financial firms. The British Bank Awards are run by Smart Money People, the UK’s financial services review and research website.

After proving a hit at last year’s ceremony, the comedian Rob Rouse once again hosted the awards, which took place at Café de Paris in central London.

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