In an era where big banks are equated as the bad guys more than ever [think Occupy Wall Street and Bank Transfer Day], it’s easy to forget that many consumers still trust their FIs over other players.
But this point was reemphasized for me today as I took a peek at the results from KPMG International’s 5th Annual Consumers and Convergence survey, whose most recent data revealed that more than half of consumers said they trusted their banks the most with their payment data.
From the report’s release:
“When asked who they trusted most with their payment data, 56% of consumers said their financial services institution, 30 percent trusted secure payment sites such as PayPal, seven percent trusted their retailers and six percent, their mobile/internet service providers.”
As mobile commerce evolves into digital wallets, what provider consumers trust the most should mean a lot to the “trusted” company’s usage rates. Certainly, this point of consumers preferring to use their banks for payment services rather than outside players has been brought up before, but it’s worth repeating. In the race for mobile payments, the company that markets a service fastest may not end up “winning” the most users in the long run. Rather in today’s digital age, trust is king for consumers and banks still own that status for now. And as long as banks want to offer a service, aka it’s profitable for the institution, I imagine consumers will chose the FI over a startup.