NEW YORK—A new report, which indicates that banks are still struggling to regain trust lost from the recent financial crisis, found that PayPal is the most trusted financial services brand, and that major credit card brands are now scoring higher trustworthy marks than banks.
The latest Landor Pulse—an analysis conducted by global brand strategy and design firm Landor reveals that approximately 30% of consumers rank PayPal as trustworthy, compared with 25% for Visa, 23% for Mastercard, and 17% for American Express, which has fallen from a 2006 trust rating of 24.
“Other e-payment solutions do not fare as well: Apple Pay and Google Wallet are trusted by only 13% of consumers, while Venmo is at the low end of the scale with just 10% of consumers finding it trustworthy. Interestingly, Venmo is a service of PayPal Holdings, Inc.,” Landor said.
Retail banks do not rank highly with consumers: just 17% think Capital One and Chase are trustworthy, with Bank of America one point below at 16%. Unsurprisingly in light of its recent challenges, Wells Fargo fell from a 23% rating in 2006 and a 19% rating in 2016 to its current ranking of just 14.5%, Landor said.
“Also, a victim of current controversy after having been called a “bubble” by some financial leaders, Bitcoin has the lowest rating of all, with only 6% of consumers believing it to be trustworthy,” Landor said.
The Landor Pulse of trusted financial services brands is based on data from the first half of 2017 from the United States BrandAsset Valuator (BAV). BAV is the world’s largest database of consumer brand perception, comparing statistics for more than 55 financial services brands.
“Financial services brands are still seeing an impact from the 2007–2008 crisis, augmented by ongoing issues facing myriad financial institutions over the past two years,” said Louis Sciullo, executive director of financial and professional services at Landor. “We see credit card brands faring better because of their daily place in consumers’ lives and the relative clarity of their fee model. Meanwhile, PayPal’s high trust ranking stems from the amazing job it’s done to establish confidence in its digital platform. It now boasts over 200 million active account holders and has relationships with consumers and merchants that give it a stronghold on the payments market.”