Look, feel, ease of clicks. These seemingly simple elements of online banking are critical to attracting clients, making customer interactions convenient, and building long-term brand loyalty. “In terms of keeping your customers, to me, the digital experience is what the bank is to that customer,” says Jordan Sternlieb, a senior partner in the financial services practice at West Monroe, a global consulting firm. A bank’s online presence, he adds, is “continuing to be more and more important for how the consumer sees the brand.”
For Tangerine, a neobank (meaning it operates exclusively online), founded as ING Direct Canada in 1997, its seamless, mobile-first experience has helped the bank consistently win awards for client satisfaction, including its latest title as the No. 1–ranked bank in Canada on Forbes’ World’s Best Banks 2025.
“Since its launch in Canada, Tangerine has stood apart from its competitors as a challenger brand with an uncomplicated, client-focused value proposition,” says Terri-Lee Weeks, the bank’s president and CEO. This is borne out, she says, in the way Tangerine—currently serving more than 2 million clients—has prioritized “clients’ needs, and investing in innovation and technology to support their financial wellness.”
This investment in financial technology and digital prowess was a common theme among the 385 financial institutions that made this year’s list of the World’s Best Banks.
To create this seventh annual ranking, Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to survey more than 50,000 people across 34 countries in 17 different languages. Respondents were required to have a checking or savings account with a bank, to have had an account with a bank within the last three years, or to be able to evaluate banks they knew through family and friends. Any bank offering a checking or savings account was eligible; United States credit unions were not.
Survey participants shared how satisfied they were with each bank and whether they would recommend it to others, and rated each on trustworthiness, terms and conditions, digital services, customer service and financial advice. All of these elements were factored into a scoring system, and banks with the highest scores made our final ranking. (Note that the number of banks included in each country varies according to the country’s population and the size of its banking industry.) For more on the methodology, see below.
The Dutch multinational banking company ING Group, which held its No. 1 position from 2024 in Australia, Germany, Poland and Spain, has also been focusing on offering personalized experiences through new technologies. This includes using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in chatbots to improve response times to customer requests and offering loans within minutes based on transactional data.
“Customers continue to become increasingly mobile-first: more and more of our retail customers are using only their mobile phone to use our banking services,” says Pinar Abay, ING’s global head of retail and business banking. “The digital banking trend is likely to continue this year, and customers will continue to raise their expectations on their banking experience across all channels.”
As one of the biggest mortgage banks in Europe, ING—which serves 40 million customers in more than 100 countries—also prides itself on helping consumers decrease their environmental footprint by offering financing for green-building projects. “We focus on financing sustainable homes and renovations through secured and unsecured lending, and aim to offer sustainable lending products in all relevant markets by 2025,” says Abay. The hope is that by next year, ING’s 40 million retail customers will be making sustainable upgrades in ten markets.
In the United States, the top spot among the 66 ranked banks went to SoFi, a neobank with 10 million clients. A few of its selling points: SoFi offers some of the best rates for checking and savings accounts as well as student loan refinancing and a variety of private student loan products. Following closely behind SoFi were traditional banks (with plenty of online offerings) HSBC Holdings at No. 2 and Capital One at No. 3.
Earning No. 1 in both Mexico and Brazil was Nubank, another neobank. With 100 million customers in Brazil (about half of the country’s adult population), the bank is known for its customer-first approach. Nubankers (as the company calls its employees) listen closely to what their customers say, and the bank improves its services constantly based on their feedback. “All Nubankers are invited to shadow our customer support periodically to truly understand the type of feedback we’re getting at the end of the line,” says David Vélez, founder and CEO of Nubank. “Nubank’s leadership, including myself, participate regularly.” And this insistence on listening has paid off: The Brazilian Central Bank, which regulates Nubank, recorded the lowest number of complaints for Nubank among the 15 largest financial institutions for the last two quarters of 2024.
Nubank has also implemented GenAI to empower its human customer service agents with conversation summaries and recommended responses, reducing chat response times by 70 percent while improving quality and speed for consumers and agents.
“Being 100 percent digital also allows us to offer products with no fees and some of the lowest interest rates in the market,” says Vélez. “We are confident that by prioritizing what’s best for our customers, we are earning their loyalty for decades to come.”
For the full list of the World’s Best Banks, click here.
Methodology
To produce the World’s Best Banks 2025, Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista, which surveyed more than 50,000 individuals across 34 countries in 17 different languages. From October 2024 through December 2024 participants were asked to evaluate banks where they currently have a checking or savings account, where they’ve had an account within the past three years, or that they knew through family or friends. Any bank offering a checking or savings account was eligible; United States credit unions were not.
Respondents shared their overall satisfaction with each bank, as well as whether they would recommend it to others, and then rated each on five criteria: trustworthiness, terms and conditions (such as fees and rates), customer service (wait times and helpfulness of employees), digital services (ease of using the website and app), and quality of financial advice.
All of these elements were factored into a scoring system, which also included last year’s results at a lower weight. Similarly, responses from former customers (within the last three years) and people who knew the bank through family and friends were given lower weights than the responses from current customers. The banks with the highest final scores in their countries made the list. (Note that the number of banks listed in each country varies based on the country’s population and the size of its banking sector.) All told, 385 banks made our overall ranking.
As with all Forbes lists, companies pay no fee to participate or be selected. To read more about how we make these lists, click here. For questions about this list, please email listdesk [at] forbes.com.
Read the full article here
