Despite its high-profile ad campaign touting its new mbanx interactive banking service, Bank of Montreal still has some changing to do.

But then it’s not alone.

A recent survey of Canadian banks by Canadian businesspeople Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead, in their book Canadian Money Management Online – Personal Finance on the Net (Prentice Hall Canada), found that Canada’s banking institutions are sadly lacking when it comes to telling their own branch employees about their Web sites.

The authors rated the country’s financial institutions and found that even top-of-the-class ranked Canada Trust deserved only a C for its performance.

The survey asked 20 branches of six Canadian banking institutions the address of the bank’s Web site and found that, at best, 60% knew the answer (Canada Trust). All the other participants failed the test, with success rates ranging from a dismal 10% (cibc) to 25% (Toronto-Dominion Bank).

The book’s second survey involved sending a typical customer inquiry to each bank’s site using e-mail, and rating the banks according to how quickly they were able to reply. Again, Canada Trust fared the best with a response rate of 44 minutes, while both Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank failed, taking six and 17 days to reply, respectively.