Consumer Interest in Banking Remains Historically High, Perhaps Permanently So

I have maintained that banking has inexorably changed since the credit crisis began five years ago this week. I have also suspected that the consumer has changed inexorably, too, although data on that is much harder to come by.

One way to measure consumer sentiments toward banking is to gauge their search engine traffic related to banking. It turns out that the credit crisis creating a wellspring of search traffic related to “banking” — and, importantly, that traffic has not reverted to pre-crisis levels. This is five years after the crisis began, mind you.

Below is a graphic that marks search traffic over time for the term “banking,” courtesy of Google. It includes a forecast on future traffic, too.

It is apparent that when the credit crisis hit in 2008, Google search traffic for the term “banking” also began to heat up. In December 2007, the search index for “banking” was 25 and that index soared to a high of 100 in April 2010. But still as of today, the index remains at 54, more than double what it was back before the credit crisis kicked off. To me, this indicates a fundamental change in consumer awareness of “banking,” and the forecast (for whatever it is worth) implies that that change will remain the status quo.