Singapore’s undergraduates: how they choose which bank to patronise

Abstract

Undergraduates constitute an attractive segment of customers for retail banks in many countries of the world, including Singapore. This study, using a sample of Singapore’s undergraduates, sets out to establish a ranking of the various dimensions which influence their bank selection decision and seeks to determine how homogeneous undergraduates are in relation to their selection decision. Seven bank selection dimensions were identified, the most important being undergraduates should “feel secure”, while the least important dimension was “third party influences”. Responses between those “attending engineering courses and non‐engineering courses” were compared, as were those between “males and females” and “single and multiple bank users”. More significant differences were found when engineering undergraduates were compared with non‐engineering undergraduates. Irrespective of these differences, the sequencing of the seven selection dimensions was invariably in the same order.