Nigeria’s fintech disruptors are redefining customer expectations in banking, leaving traditional institutions struggling to keep pace, according to highlights from the 2025 KPMG West Africa Banking Industry Customer Experience Survey.
The survey, which polled over 35,000 retail customers across Nigeria and Ghana, reveals a clear divide: mobile-first fintechs dominate the top spots in customer experience (CX) rankings, while even the strongest traditional banks lag behind by several percentage points.
Opay leads with an impressive 80.7 percent score, praised for seamless instant transfers, high app reliability, and user-friendly features that minimize everyday friction. The top five fintechs are tightly clustered between 79.0 percent and 80.7 percent, a mere 1.7-point spread, demonstrating fierce competition at the pinnacle of digital banking satisfaction.
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In contrast, leading traditional banks score in the mid-to-high 70s, creating a noticeable gap. This disparity underscores how customers now benchmark all banks against the effortless, reliable experiences delivered by fintechs.
The KPMG report evaluates providers on six pillars: Integrity, Resolution, Expectations, Time & Effort, Personalisation, and Empathy. Fintechs excel particularly in Time & Effort, delivering quick, low-friction transactions and Expectations, with consistent uptime and minimal failures.
Traditional banks, burdened by legacy systems and branch-heavy operations, continue to struggle with Resolution, marking the fifth consecutive year this remains their weakest area.
“This is a wake-up call for traditional banks,” the report implies through its findings. As digital channels become the primary touchpoint for customers, fintechs’ mobile-native design gives them an inherent advantage in reducing effort and building trust.
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Features like proactive notifications, easy dispute reversals, and zero-downtime reliability have become the new table stakes, standards that customers now demand from everyone.
While fintechs face their own hurdles, such as concerns over data privacy and fraud perception, their dominance in CX is accelerating Nigeria’s shift to a truly mobile-first financial ecosystem.
For legacy banks, closing the gap will require more than incremental app updates; it demands a fundamental rethinking of how to deliver personalized, effortless experiences in an era where customers compare banking to the best of tech, not just other banks.
As the report notes, competition has moved “beyond the basics.” In 2026 and beyond, the winners will be those who not only match fintech speed but exceed the high bar these innovators have set.
