🏆 Australian Call Centre Rankings · Q2 2026
Australian Banks Q2 2026 Call Centre Rankings
Almost nobody rings a bank about a home loan on a whim. By the time the phone is in their hand, they have compared rates, read the fees and decided to act — which makes the call the single most valuable moment in the acquisition journey.
These rankings show how Australia's banks handle it, based on real mystery shopping calls made as customers shopping for a home loan or a new credit card — comparing rates, asking about fees, and working out where to apply.
Every call is independently assessed against 48+ CX metrics aligned to the Australian Contact Centre CX Standards, covering both how easily the caller reached a person and how well that conversation was handled. Nobody is told when we are calling, so what you see here is what a customer sees.
The economics are unforgiving. An unanswered call or a five-minute menu is not a service problem in banking — it is an acquisition problem.
The enquiry was already qualified, the customer had already chosen to pick up the phone, and the marketing spend that got them there has already been paid. Every one of those calls that ends badly is a competitor's new mortgage.
Q2 2026 shows a sector recovering hard from its worst quarter on record, yet still finishing last of the seven sectors we measure — with the best and the worst performing call centre in the country. The full picture is below.
What you're looking at. This is the public snapshot — the headline sector results, and a fraction of what each assessed call generates across 48+ individual metrics. ACXPA Members see considerably more: bank leaderboards, monthly and quarterly trends, lifetime averages, and provider-level results for a selection of institutions.
But membership is still a view of the sector. It is not a view of you, and it does not open up the full dataset.
The only way to see your own contact centre's complete results — and to benchmark against the specific competitors you nominate — is through our Banking Benchmarking Services.
Australian Banks · Q2 2026
Executive Summary
Australian banking rebounded sharply from the worst quarter in its record. Overall CX averaged 43.8% in Q2 2026, up 11.5 percentage points from the 32.3% low set in Q1, and the sector's strongest result since Q4 2024.
Overall CX is the headline number: a weighted blend of how easily a customer reaches an agent and how well that agent handles the conversation. Every assessed call is scored against a defined standard of best practice, so 100% describes a call where nothing was missed.
Even after an 11.5 point recovery, banking still finishes last of the seven sectors we measure nationally — a position it has held for six consecutive quarters, and in eleven of the twelve quarters since tracking began.
The gap is not marginal. Banking sits 11.4 points behind the next-lowest sector and 11.1 points below the 54.9% all-industry average.
Up 11.5 points on Q1 2026 — the sector's best result since Q4 2024, and still last of seven sectors nationally.
No sector has a wider internal spread. Hume Bank scored 74.0% — the highest result recorded by any company in any sector this quarter, and the best any Australian bank has achieved since we began benchmarking.
ING scored 12.3%, the lowest recorded nationally. The best and worst call centres in the country this quarter are both banks, 61.7 points apart.
The more useful finding is that banking's problem is not its agents. Agent Mastery averaged 54.6%, up 1.5 points and a second consecutive quarterly improvement. That ranks 4th of seven sectors and sits above the 54.1% all-industry average.
On Close — controlling the end of the call with a final check, a clear next step and a genuine thank you — banks scored 61.4% and ranked first of all seven sectors.
Not one of the nine banks incurred a quality deduction on any assessed call this quarter, against an industry rate of 1.8%. When a customer gets through, banking handles the conversation better than most of the country.
Getting through is the problem. Accessibility averaged 42.3% — 23.7 points below the 66.0% industry average, and 20.4 points behind the next-worst sector. Banking ranks last of seven on Accessibility, average wait time, total time to reach a live person, and time spent in the phone menu.
The numbers behind that are stark. Average wait time was 3:24 against 1:52 nationally, and total time to reach a live person 5:20 against 3:05.
Callers spent 1:56 in phone menus versus 1:12 nationally, navigating an average of 3.1 menu layers against 2.1. Just under half of all assessed calls — 49.8% — incurred an access deduction, against 20.1% across all sectors.
Notably, banks are easy to find and hard to enter. The sector scored 82.1% on Search — how readily a customer can locate the right number — comfortably above the 73.6% industry average. Everything after that point is where the experience breaks down.
The recovery itself was broad rather than isolated. Seven of the nine banks improved their Overall CX, led by NAB (+31.2 points), Bank Australia (+21.0), Bendigo Bank (+18.4), Great Southern Bank (+16.4) and Hume Bank (+16.2). Only ANZ and ING went backwards.
These are the highest-intent calls a bank receives — someone shopping for a home loan or a new credit card, rate in hand, ready to apply. The implication is uncomfortable but clear: the marketing spend that generates that call is being wasted at the front door, not in the conversation.
ACXPA conducts this benchmarking by posing as prospective customers, typically shopping for a home loan or a new credit card. These are new-business enquiries representing direct revenue opportunities — not account servicing or existing-customer support — and every call is scored against the Australian Contact Centre CX Standards.
Sector Leaders
🏆 Top Performers — Australian Banks Q2 2026
Overall CX — Hume Bank (74.0%)
Hume Bank did not just win the banking sector. Its 74.0% is the highest Overall CX result recorded by any company in any sector this quarter, and the best result any Australian bank has produced since benchmarking began.
It is a 16.2 point gain on Q1 and a second consecutive quarterly improvement, putting Hume 16.5 points clear of ANZ (57.5%) in second. The majors were comprehensively out-performed by an institution a fraction of their size.
Accessibility — Hume Bank (87.0%)
Accessibility scores the whole journey from dialling to speaking with a person — time in the phone menu, clarity of the options, how long the customer holds, and whether the call is answered at all (full definitions here).
Hume scored 87.0%, a best-ever result and its fourth consecutive quarter leading the sector. In practice: 54 seconds in the menu, 1.8 menu layers, a 1:45 wait, and every single call answered — reaching a person 2:39 after dialling.
Set against a sector that averaged 42.3%, Hume is not marginally better at answering the phone. It is operating in a different league to the rest of Australian banking.
Agent Mastery — Hume Bank (68.4%)
Agent Mastery assesses how effectively agents Engage (build rapport and take ownership), Discover (identify what the customer actually needs), Educate (explain products, rates and fees clearly), Close (finish with confidence and a clear next step), and create lasting Impact through empathy and communication quality.
Hume gained 8.7 points to 68.4%, a best-ever result, a third consecutive quarterly improvement, and 2nd nationally across every sector we assess.
It also led the sector on Educate (79.7%, 4th nationally) and Impact (89.2%, 7th nationally) — meaning Hume topped three of banking's headline metrics and two of the five competencies in the same quarter.
🗣 Needs Discovery — ANZ (65.9%)
Discover measures whether the agent establishes what the customer actually needs — their situation, their goals, their constraints — before recommending anything. On a home loan or credit card enquiry it is the competency that separates a quoted rate from an actual conversation.
ANZ scored 65.9% and ranks 6th nationally. More striking is the consistency: ANZ has led this competency in eleven of the twelve quarters we have tracked the sector, including the last three.
It is the single most dominant record any bank holds on any measure, and it survived a quarter in which ANZ's overall position slipped.
✅ Closing the Call — Westpac (78.3%)
Close covers the end of the call: a final check that everything has been answered, a clear next step, and a genuine thank you. It is where a rate enquiry either becomes an application or does not.
Westpac gained 20.9 points to 78.3%, taking the sector lead and ranking 2nd nationally across all sectors. It contributed to banking finishing first of seven sectors on this competency.
The contrast within Westpac's own result is the story of the quarter in miniature: the best call ending in Australian banking, attached to the worst front door in the country.
What Improved
⭐ Key Wins — Australian Banks Q2 2026
The sector recovered from its record low — and broadly
Overall CX rose 11.5 percentage points to 43.8%, reversing the 32.3% record low of Q1 2026 and delivering the sector's best result since Q4 2024.
This was not one bank's rebound. Seven of the nine banks improved, with gains of 31.2 points (NAB), 21.0 (Bank Australia), 18.4 (Bendigo Bank), 16.4 (Great Southern Bank) and 16.2 (Hume Bank). Only ANZ and ING went backwards.
Accessibility recovered 11.1 points to 42.3%, average wait time fell 1 minute 41 seconds to 3:24, and calls answered within ten minutes rose 18.5 points to 75.3%.
🏆 Hume Bank posts the best result in the country
Hume Bank's 74.0% Overall CX is the highest score recorded by any company in any sector this quarter, and the best any Australian bank has achieved since tracking began.
It led the sector on Overall CX, Accessibility (87.0%), Agent Mastery (68.4%), Educate (79.7%) and Impact (89.2%) — setting best-ever marks on four of those five. It also answered 100% of calls within ten minutes for the first time.
Hume's calls were also the shortest in the sector at 3:47 of talk time and 6:27 end to end, which is the point worth noting: it is not buying its scores with time. It is faster and better.
📈 NAB stages the sector's largest recovery
NAB improved Overall CX by 31.2 percentage points to 51.0%, the second-largest single-quarter gain recorded in Australian banking, behind only ANZ's 32.6 point rise in Q4 2025.
The driver was access. Average wait time more than halved from 8:32 to 4:06, total time to reach a live person fell from 10:35 to 6:08, and calls answered within ten minutes rose 50 points to 77.8%.
NAB was also the only bank to record zero access deductions across every assessed call.
It retained its Engage leadership at 52.9%, a competency it has now led in seven of twelve quarters.
✅ Banks are the country's best closers
The sector's Close score rose 5.7 points to 61.4%, ranking first of all seven sectors nationally and sitting 9.0 points above the industry average.
Westpac led at 78.3% (2nd nationally, up 20.9 points), followed by Hume Bank at 74.8% (up 23.9) and Bendigo Bank at 66.7% (up 33.4). Four banks recorded double-digit gains in the competency.
In a market where the enquiry is already qualified, closing well is where the return sits. This is the one dimension on which banking currently leads the country.
🎯 Not a single quality deduction across the entire sector
No bank incurred a quality deduction on any assessed call in Q2 2026 — a sector rate of 0.0%, down from 5.6% in Q1 and against an industry average of 1.8%.
Quality deductions are applied where a call breaks down badly enough to materially damage the experience. A clean sheet across nine institutions and every assessed call indicates conversations that are consistently controlled, whatever else the numbers say.
⬆ Great Southern Bank and Bank Australia both climb sharply
Great Southern Bank improved Overall CX 16.4 points to 53.7%, with Accessibility up 16.9 points to 63.5% and average wait time cut 63% from 4:57 to 1:51. Its Agent Mastery reached a best-ever 54.2% and its Impact a best-ever 70.8%.
Bank Australia gained 21.0 points to 47.1%, a second consecutive quarterly improvement, driven by calls answered rising 44.4 points to 94.4% and wait time falling from 5:45 to 2:44.
📞 CBA and Hume Bank answered every call
CBA and Hume Bank both recorded 100% Calls Answered within ten minutes — a first for Hume, and a return to its own best for CBA. ANZ and Bank Australia both reached 94.4%.
The sector figure of 75.3% is an 18.5 point recovery on Q1, though it still leaves banking 5th of seven nationally and 7.9 points below the industry average.
Where The Sector Is Losing Ground
⚠ Overall CX Challenges — Australian Banks Q2 2026
🚪 The problem is the front door, not the agents
Banking ranks 4th of seven sectors on Agent Mastery and last of seven on Accessibility. Those two facts, side by side, are the sector's entire story.
Accessibility averaged 42.3% against 66.0% nationally — and 20.4 points behind the next-worst sector. Banking finished last of seven on average wait time (3:24 vs 1:52), total time to reach a live person (5:20 vs 3:05) and time spent in phone menus (1:56 vs 1:12).
Almost half of all assessed calls — 49.8% — incurred an access deduction, against 20.1% across all sectors. The conversation, when it happens, is above the national average. Most callers never get to have it.
📉 The sector remains last nationally, by a widening margin
Banking has now finished last of seven sectors for six consecutive quarters, and in eleven of the twelve quarters since tracking began.
At 43.8% it sits 11.4 points behind the next-lowest sector and 11.1 points below the all-industry average. The Q2 recovery closed the gap to banking's own history, not to anyone else's performance.
🔻 ING records the lowest result in the country
ING scored 12.3% Overall CX — its worst result on record, a third consecutive quarter of decline, and the lowest score recorded by any company in any sector this quarter.
Total time to reach a live person was 9:57, the longest of any company nationally, after 2:21 in the phone menu and a 7:36 wait. Only 38.9% of calls were answered within ten minutes, and 88.9% carried an access deduction.
Agent Mastery fell 16.5 points to 40.5%, with Impact down 40.2 points to a worst-ever 43.1% and Engage at 6.9%. Unlike the rest of the sector, ING's problems now extend well past the front door.
🚧 Westpac has the worst front door in Australia
Westpac's Accessibility of 9.9% is the lowest recorded by any company in any sector this quarter, and a second consecutive quarter of decline.
The cause is specific, and it is not the queue: Westpac had the fastest average wait time in the sector at 0:44.
But it fielded 4.8 menu layers — the most of any bank — answered only 55.6% of calls within ten minutes, and incurred an access deduction on 100% of assessed calls.
Roughly four in nine prospective customers never reached anyone. Those who did were answered quickly and, on the evidence of Westpac's sector-leading 78.3% Close score, handled well.
⏳ Bendigo Bank posts the country's longest calls and slowest queue
Bendigo Bank recovered 18.4 points to 24.3% but remains second-last nationally, and it now holds three of the country's worst time results.
Its average wait time of 8:02 is the longest recorded nationally, its total experience time of 19:04 the longest of any company in any sector, and its talk time nearly tripled to a worst-ever 9:35.
Only 27.8% of its calls were answered within ten minutes — the lowest figure in the country.
Bendigo's agents are not the issue: Agent Mastery rose 14.5 points to 57.6%, above the sector average. Prospective customers are waiting eight minutes to reach them, and most give up first.
🔁 Phone menus keep getting longer
Time spent in phone menus rose again to 1:56, the longest on record for the sector and last of seven nationally against a 1:12 industry average. Menu layers held at 3.1 versus 2.1 nationally.
CBA recorded 2:49 in menu — the longest of any company in any sector — and a third consecutive quarter as the sector's slowest. Despite answering 100% of calls in an average of 1:37, CBA's Accessibility was only 34.4%, because every assessed call carried an access deduction.
The sector's Design score, which measures how well menu options are structured and presented, fell 3.9 points to 48.1% against 61.9% nationally, ending two quarters of improvement. Banks are easy to find and hard to enter.
🗣 Needs discovery is slipping while everything else recovers
Discover eased 0.7 points to 46.6% against a 49.9% industry average. It was one of only two Agent Mastery competencies to fall, alongside Impact, which dropped 5.1 points to 67.7% — though that decline is almost entirely ING, whose Impact score collapsed 40.2 points on its own.
CBA (35.2%) was lowest in the sector, down 5.0 points, and Hume Bank fell 16.1 points to 45.9% — the one blemish on an otherwise exceptional quarter. Seven of the nine banks scored below the national average.
These are home loan and credit card shoppers. The right product turns on deposit, income, existing debt, timing and how the customer actually spends — none of which an agent learns without asking.
A caller who is never asked has no reason to prefer this bank over the next one on their list. They have the rate; what they don't have is a reason to stop shopping.
Recognising Call Centre Excellence for Australian Banks
Congratulations to the Australian banks delivering standout customer experiences through their call centres in Q2 2026 — and particular credit to Hume Bank, whose result is the highest recorded by any company in any sector we assess this quarter.
These rankings are based on independent mystery shopping assessments, using real customer enquiries to evaluate how well contact centres handle Australians shopping for a home loan or a new credit card.
Recognition here reflects more than meeting expectations. In a market where the enquiry arrives already qualified and already comparing, the banks at the top of this table are converting high-intent demand that their competitors are losing at the phone menu.
74.0% 57.5% 53.7% 12.3%Quarterly Trend
Overall CX
Australian Banks
The Overall CX Score is the headline metric in our benchmarking program — a single weighted score covering how easily a customer reaches a contact centre, and how well the conversation goes once they do.
The two are weighted deliberately. Getting through matters, but what happens next matters more — so the agent's handling of the conversation carries the greater share of the score.
Penalties are applied where a call breaks down badly, so a serious failure can't be averaged away by an otherwise reasonable interaction. The score reflects what the customer actually experienced.
Learn more about the Australian Contact Centre CX Standards that power these assessments.
Key Metrics Trend – Australian Banks (12-Month View)
The chart below highlights a 12-month trend across three core CX performance metrics for Australian banks:
- Overall CX – A weighted composite score reflecting the full enquiry experience, combining how easily the customer reached an agent with how well that conversation was handled.
- Accessibility – How quickly and easily a prospective customer can reach a real person to discuss a home loan or credit card enquiry, measured across menu navigation, wait times, recorded messaging and whether the call is answered at all.
- Agent Mastery – The skill, clarity and confidence with which agents engage callers, establish needs, explain options and progress toward an application, measured across five core competencies.
- Overall CX
- This is the headline metric – representing the total customer experience across every stage of the call journey. It's calculated using a weighted combination of the Accessibility and Agent Mastery scores, providing a holistic view of how well banks are delivering end-to-end experiences during revenue-intent enquiries — typically a customer shopping for a home loan or a new credit card.
- Accessibility
- This measures how easily and quickly a prospective customer can reach a real person. It includes navigating phone menus, clarity of options, queue times, and whether callers successfully reach an agent. Higher scores indicate faster access, lower friction and fewer abandoned sales opportunities.
- Agent Mastery
- This evaluates the quality and professionalism of the conversation once contact is made. It measures how effectively banking staff qualify needs, explain products, handle objections, and guide the customer toward a next step such as an application or a booked appointment – all while maintaining compliance and empathy. It's a direct measure of agent capability in high-value acquisition conversations.
Learn more about the Australian Contact Centre CX Standards that underpin these assessments.
