Evaluating Modern Banking Alternatives A GRA-Based Performance Assessment of Traditional and Digital Financial Platforms

Based on the document content, I'll create a comprehensive abstract that captures the key aspects of the research. The research investigates the performance and efficiency of various consumer banking platforms using Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). The study analyzed five distinct banking platforms—Online Banks (Nedbank's), Credit Unions, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending, Fintech Solutions, and Cryptocurrency/Decentralized Finance (Deify)—across four critical dimensions: Customer Satisfaction, Digital Banking and Technology, Financial Products and Services, and Customer Support. The analysis employed normalized data, deviation sequences, and grey relation coefficients to establish comprehensive performance metrics. The findings reveal significant variations in platform effectiveness, with Fintech solutions achieving the highest Grey Relationship Grade (GRG: 0.7387), followed closely by P2P lending (GRG: 0.7064). Traditional platforms like Credit Unions maintained moderate performance (GRG: 0.5674), while Cryptocurrency/Deify (GRG: 0.5117) and Online Banks (GRG: 0.5115) showed considerable room for improvement. The research demonstrates that success in modern banking requires a balanced integration of technological innovation with customer-centric services, rather than excellence in isolated areas. These results hold significant importance for shaping the strategic growth of banking services and guiding the future advancement of financial technology platforms.