Royal Bank of Scotland came bottom in terms of overall customer service as data was published which will allow customers to compare the quality of service they get from their bank for the first time.
The data is being published after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Competition & Markets Authority ordered banks to work harder for their customers.
The information includes a number of metrics for personal and business accounts about how likely customers would be to recommend their current provider to friends, family or other businesses.
Royal Bank of Scotland came bottom of the tables for both business banking and personal banking when it came to overall service quality.
In other categories, such as the quality of service in branch or of online banking for personal accounts, RBS came second from bottom, kept off the foot of the table by Clydesdale Bank.
Banks are also now required by the FCA to publish details of available services and relevant helplines. In addition, they will have to provide information about the number of major operational and security incidents they have experienced, and provide updates on their websites.
Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA, said: "Getting a good deal isn’t just about pricing. It’s also important for customers - including individuals and small businesses - to be able to judge the quality of service around their current account and to see whether other providers could offer something that suits them better.
"This information should encourage providers to offer the services that people value."
Today's action has been taken after the CMA published its final report into competition in the banking sector last year, which found older and larger banks accounted for the majority of the market so did not have to work hard enough to win and retain customers.
This also made it harder for new and smaller banks to attract customers, which meant the banking sector was not as innovative or competitive as it should be.
Among the other recommendations the CMA made was the need for greater loan rate transparency, overdraft alerts with grace periods and the development of comparison tools.
Last month the FCA proposed a single, basic savings rate for all longstanding customers with cash savings, after acknowledging its efforts to encourage switching have had "limited impact".
Adam Land, senior director at the CMA, said: "For the first time, people will now be able to easily compare banks on the quality of the service they provide, and so judge if they’re getting the most for their money or could do better elsewhere."
The data showed challenger Metro Bank scored highly, in first place in terms of whether its customers would recommend its overdraft services and its branch services, with 75 per cent and 84 per cent recommending these respectively, and in second place in terms of whether its customers would recommend the overall quality of its service and its online banking services.
First Direct came first with the overall quality of its service and its online banking services, with 85 per cent and 87 per cent recommending these.
For business banking Handelsbanken came top in all but one of the metrics, including services in branch, relationship management, small business overdraft and loan services and overall service quality.
The only category it did not come top in was online banking services, where Barclays came out the best.
The personal banking results were based on a survey of 16,012 people while the business results were based on a survey of 16,802 people.
damian.fantato@ft.com
