SEGMENTATION OF CONSUMER BANKING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

This study, defined as exploratory and descriptive, aims to analyze market segmentation based on main financial products and services provided by financial institutions, investigating the effect of demographic and behavioral variables amongst clients' choices. Therefore, emphasis is given to banking institutions, especially because they are responsible for the capital flow amongst resource takers and providers in the Global Economy. Considering this investigation, banking customers were separated into categories based on different characteristics, choices, and behaviors. Firstly, the Cluster Analysis defined groups according to similarities among a sample of 414 respondents between 18 and 81 years of age. Secondly, the Discriminant Analysis allocated the same sample to different categories, based on results of the Cluster Analysis. This research technique provides the comparison of the results presented by both statistical techniques, which leads to the conclusion that the Cluster Analysis is the technique with results that best define the differentiation and characterization of each banking client group. Finally, the two techniques are validated, and study limitations and contributions are explained.