How Commercial Banks Can Boost Their CMA Rankings in 2025

Here's who's winning the commercial banking game right now:

1. Monzo: Top spot for both personal and business banking

2. Mettle: NatWest's new digital business platform landing straight into second place

3. Starling Bank: Still holding strong in the top three.

The reality check for traditional banks:

• The gap between digital-first and traditional approaches is getting wider, not narrower

• Customer expectations have clearly shifted and their not going back

Why This Matters

• The digital divide is real: Monzo and Mettle are winning on experience, not just features.

• Traditional banks are struggling: Despite large resources, the main high street banks can't reverse the current customer satisfaction trends.

• New players making immediate impact: Mettle's second-place debut shows that getting the formula right from day one pays off.

What Should Commercial Banks do About it?

1. Make digital actually work for business customers

• Lightning fast account opening: Why should it take weeks when it could take minutes?

• Real-time everything: Cash flow, transactions, approvals. Business moves fast, tech should too.

• Mobile-first lending: Your SME customers are making decisions on their phones, not in the boardroom.

2. Relationship management gets a tech makeover

• AI-powered insights: Help them spot opportunities before customers even know they need them.

• Integrated customer views: No more "let me check another system" conversations.

• Proactive communication: Use data to reach out with solutions, not just problems.

3. Streamline, streamline, streamline

• One click everything: Applications, approvals, account management.

• Automated compliance: Make regulatory requirements invisible to customers.

• Instant decisions: For standard lending and credit, speed beats everything.

CMA results aren't just numbers on a page.

What are successful commercial banks doing:

• Customer obsession: Every decision starts with "What does our customer actually want?".

• Tech as a differentiator: Not just digitising old processes, but reimagining what banking could be.

• Speed and simplicity: Making complex business banking feel effortless.

Business customers don't want banking to be complicated. They want it to work seamlessly in the background while they focus on growing their companies.

The Bottom Line

The message couldn't be clearer: commercial banks that don't prioritise customer-centric digital transformation aren't just falling behind - they're becoming irrelevant.

But here's the good news, it's not too late! The banks that act decisively now, that genuinely commit to transformation rather than just talking about it, still have time to turn things around.

The question is: will you be proactive, or will you wait for next February's results to tell the same story?

Reach out to us to see how nCino can support your customer experience.