TD Canada Trust has earned the top spot in a scorecard of Canadian online banking websites for the second consecutive review period.

The fall 2009 Online Banking scorCard from Surviscor, released on Tuesday, reveals that TD Canada Trust earned the highest score for the features and functionality of its online banking services. The study, conducted in September and October, uses more than a thousand criteria to audit the online banking sites of 15 banks and credit unions in Canada.

TD Canada Trust earned a score of 66.23 on a 100-point scale. Surviscor praised the bank’s site for strong customer interaction and support and very good transactional processes. It also earned the top score for web design.

Royal Bank of Canada earned the second highest score, at 64.14, and was commended for a strong public website and good accessibility features. RBC also beat all other firms in the website transactions and getting started categories.

Among the other big banks, Scotiabank ranked third, CIBC was sixth and Bank of Montreal was eighth on the scorCard.

“BMO continues to disappoint as a bottom-tier site,” the review notes. While the site is clean and easy to use, Surviscor says the site lacks depth compared to other online banking sites, and has the worst email response time of all the big banks.

The review notes that all firms have plenty of room for improvement. Key features that are lacking on the websites include practice or temporary test access to accounts, which is becoming a common feature on online brokerage sites. In addition, Surviscor notes that many online banking sites lack security guarantees, handicap ‘accessibility’ features and online enrollment options.

“Online banking is not just another access channel for the customer, but a valued customer experience,” said Glenn LaCoste, president of Surviscor. “To compete in today’s online business, just offering the basics will no longer suffice to retain current customers or acquire new ones. Online banking institutions need to deliver a wide range of features and functionality tied to a variety of customer needs. If not, they surely risk losing current and potential business to the competition.”

In addition, the industry as a whole needs major improvements in terms of customer responsiveness, according to the review. On average, it takes four days for a customer to receive a response to an email, Surviscor found.

“Customer e-mail responsiveness initiated outside of the secure website, on the whole, leaves much to be desired,” said LaCoste.

IE