NEW YORK–Many Americans are expressing increasing optimism about their finances and the state of the banking system.
In a quarterly survey of about 2,250 middle-income bank and financial services customers (defined as having household incomes between $47,000 and $142,000) conducted by Santander Bank, 80% of households said they weren’t impacted by the recent banking crisis and had not changed their financial behavior because of the recent failures. Only 5% of those surveyed said they changed banking providers because of the turmoil.
‘On Track’
Santander further found 68% of responders said they were on track to achieve financial prosperity and that 79% thought it would happen in the next 10 years. The bank defined prosperity as “thriving financially, being able to cover living expenses, handle emergencies, and pursue life goals without significant tradeoffs,” according to CNN’s “Before the Bell” report.
“What we see in the survey is that inflation is taking a bite out of consumers’ wallets, and the majority of consumers are adjusting how they’re spending money because inflation is their number one worry,” said Santander’s U.S. CEO Tim Wennes. “At the same time, consumers are resilient and hopeful. So, when we ask them these questions about prosperity, whether they’re on the right track, the answers are overwhelmingly yes.”
Consumer Inertia
Wennes said the survey indicates most people believe they’re making the right choices and that consumers are taking advantage of this current interest rate scenario. But not everyone. Why aren’t some people moving funds into higher rate investments?
“I think it’s inertia,” Wennes told CNN. “People are comfortable with what they’ve got and so they don’t take action. But as time passes there comes more awareness, and we’ll see more customers move to take advantage of that. I think that the barriers to changing accounts are also going down. That makes it easier for customers to either open new accounts or to make changes to the type of account that they have.”
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