Consumers’ trust in banks declines: Cisco Study

Against a backdrop of Congress refusing to bail out the banks, Cisco today released a survey indicating that consumers' trust in banks is waning.

More than one in three of the 1,500 consumers surveyed would trust the likes of PayPal more than a bank (35 per cent) while the vast majority (70 per cent) would trust a bank no more than a non-bank. An independent research firm conducted the study on behalf of Cisco's Global Financial Services Practice. Cisco, which has joint headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Bangalore, has as clients 50 of the world's largest financial institutions. The respondents were a broad cross sampling of the population, though all were broadband users. They weren't asked if they did online banking but 11 percent use mobile banking and 55 percent use online bill payment.

"How do you weight your degree of trust for traditional providers of financial services versus emerging provider (such as PayPal, Google Check, etc.)?"

The lack of a marked preference for a bank somewhat calls into question the "banks' trusted position" frequently cited by the industry.