uth African banks have experienced their strongest sentiment performance in a decade, with digital campaigns playing a pivotal role in lifting overall sentiment to an impressive 27 percent in 2025. This surge, as detailed by the South African Banking Sentiment Index from DataEQ, underscores the power of enhanced digital engagement and campaign maturity in overcoming persistent operational challenges. The analysis, which reviewed 4.8 million online consumer mentions from September 2024 to August 2025, reveals a significant seven percentage point increase in industry net sentiment, reaching its highest point since the index’s inception.
This remarkable improvement highlights a sector-wide trend where strategic campaigns have fostered stronger brand connections with customers. While overall sentiment has risen, it’s crucial to note that disparities persist across different customer experience areas, with ongoing challenges related to service reliability and fairness.
Featured snippet paragraph: The answer is that digital campaigns and improved campaign maturity have significantly boosted South African banks’ sentiment, pushing it to a 10-year high of 27 percent in 2025 by enhancing customer engagement and brand perception.
Historically, from 2016 to 2021, negative customer experiences such as service delays, branch issues, and digital reliability concerns heavily influenced industry sentiment, even leading to a low of minus 13 percent in 2016 and 2019. The Covid-19 period further impacted sentiment in 2020 and 2021 due to service disruptions.
However, a turning point began in late 2021 as banks prioritized digital-first strategies. This accelerated shift, driven by increased promotional and engagement activities, marked a structural change in 2022. Industry net sentiment began its upward trajectory, moving from minus eight percent in 2022 to nine percent, then to 24 percent in 2023, culminating in the decade-high of 27 percent in 2025.
Discovery Bank emerged as the leading bank in positive mentions, achieving an industry-leading 61 percent net sentiment. This success was attributed to strong advocacy for its rewards programs, personalized benefits, and exceptional customer experience, significantly boosted by hashtags like DiscoveryBestBank and TreatMeTuesday.
First National Bank (FNB) secured the second position with 46 percent net sentiment, driven by positive discussions around its eWallet service, FNB Connect, and branch service quality. Their LoveFNB campaign further enhanced sentiment, with customers praising app usability, payment convenience, and eBucks rewards.
Absa ranked third with 43 percent net sentiment, reflecting positive feedback on its rewards, cashback offers, app functionality, and brand initiatives like the She’s Next Programme. The impact of campaign-driven engagement was undeniable.
When campaign-related conversations were factored in, industry net sentiment stood at 27 percent. However, this figure dramatically dropped to five percent when campaign mentions were excluded, illustrating the critical role these initiatives play.
This impact was most pronounced in operational sentiment, which fell from 29 percent to minus 15 percent without campaign engagement. Reputational sentiment also saw a substantial decline, decreasing from 28 percent with campaigns to 15 percent without.
Despite the positive headline figures, underlying trust-related metrics revealed persistent weaknesses in crucial customer experience areas, including security, access, fairness, and transparency, along with service quality and reliability. Reliability and fairness concerns were the most significant detractors, with net sentiment scores of minus 86 percent and minus 88 percent, respectively.
Other areas of concern included security (minus 85 percent), access (minus 78 percent), and service and customer care (minus 36 percent). Common issues contributing to negative sentiment involved system downtime, billing disputes, slow response times, and concerns about staff conduct.
For the first time, the index delved into customer vulnerability, a growing area of focus in global financial services. The analysis indicated that vulnerability-related experiences were frequently highlighted when personal circumstances interacted with banking processes.
Net sentiment across vulnerability dimensions remained deeply negative. Economic vulnerability registered at minus 79 percent, life-circumstance vulnerability at minus 69 percent, and social-demographic vulnerability at minus 52 percent. Customers facing debt stress, income shocks, illness, bereavement, emergencies, mobility challenges, or digital access barriers expressed heightened frustration when banking processes failed to accommodate their specific needs.
Edzani Phiri, lead banking analyst at DataEQ, emphasized that online consumer feedback captures the complex realities customers face, and interpreting these unstructured signals is vital as the sector adapts to evolving expectations around service quality, trust, and customer vulnerability.
