Client Name

HBL

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Ubedullah Khoso

SBS Thought Leadership Areas

Behavioural Studies

SBS Thought Leadership Area Justification

The team picked Behavioural Studies because at its heart, the report is really trying to answer one question: why do people behave the way they do with their banking? Specifically, why do HBL customers who have a perfectly functional bank account, still reachout for JazzCash or NayaPay for everyday transfers?

To answer that, the report digs into things like habit formation, how much mental effort a transaction takes, trust, inertia, and the difference between someone who stays with a bank versus someone who actually likes their bank. Those are all behavioural questions, not purely financial or strategic ones.

The research design reflects this too. The interviews were designed to understand attitudes and decision-making, the NPS question measured loyalty as a behavioural signal, and the social media analysis captured how customers actually talk about their experiences when nobody's formally asking them.

Even the recommendations are behavioural in nature. The 90-day onboarding program (R11) is about catching customers before their habits solidify. Verified complaint closure (R4) is rooted in fairness perception. The monthly value summary (R13) is about making benefits visible, so customers consciously register them.

The report does acknowledge that Entrepreneurship & Innovation could also fit, given the whole fintech disruption angle, but ultimately the core contribution is about understanding and influencing customer behaviour, so Behavioural Studies was the clear primary choice.

Aligned SDGs

GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Aligned SDGs Justification

This one ties into the fintech disruption story running throughout the report. The central challenge HBL faces is losing daily engagement to lighter, faster digital platforms. It is fundamentally a story about modernising financial infrastructure. By benchmarking HBL against fintech best practices and pushing for more digitally inclusive service models, the report is essentially nudging a major rigid institution towards more innovative and resilient infrastructure. That's squarely what SDG 9 is about.

NDA

No

Abstract

This Experiential Learning Project (ELP) was conducted for Habib Bank Limited (HBL), Pakistan's largest private sector bank, as part of the IBA Experiential Learning Program. The study focused on identifying the main difficulties customers face across HBL's digital and physical service channels, comparing the bank's performance with industry standards, and proposing practical, data-based improvements to strengthen customer engagement and reduce churn, particularly among customers aged 18 to 35 who frequently use competing digital platforms.

The study used a mixed-methods approach. It combined four semi-structured customer interviews, an online survey with 67 responses, a focus group with six participants, and an analysis of 120 social media posts and reviews collected from Facebook, Google Reviews, the Google Play Store, and LinkedIn. The primary findings were also supported by secondary sources, including SBP reports, McKinsey's Global Banking Annual Review, and academic research on digital banking adoption.

The findings suggest that HBL faces an engagement gap. Many customers keep an HBL account because of salary deposits, university payment requirements, or family influence rather than a strong preference for the bank's products or services. For routine payments, several customers use digital wallets such as JazzCash, NayaPay, and Easypaisa. Repeated OTP requirements add inconvenience to small transactions, while complaints that are marked as resolved before the issue is actually addressed can push customers to escalate publicly or consider switching. Customers also reported account changes without advance notice, which can lead to problems such as inaccessible salary funds and failed payments. Unexplained deductions, unclear promotional terms, and limited proactive communication further affect trust. Of the 120 online reviews analysed, 65.8% were negative, with an average emotional amplitude score of 3.75 on a five-point scale.

The study proposes thirteen recommendations across five areas: reducing transaction friction, improving complaint resolution through verified closure and real-time tracking, notifying customers before account-level changes, introducing a structured 90-day onboarding programme, and improving communication and transparency. The recommendations are organised into three implementation tiers, ranging from immediate steps to medium-term actions, and are intended to be practical within HBL's existing operational and regulatory constraints.

Document Type

Restricted Access

Document Name for Citation

Experiential Learning Project

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