Yahoo Finance Two-thirds of Brits still don’t trust online banking
Around two-thirds (66%) of the population do not trust that they are safe to conduct all of their banking needs online.
That is according to a survey commissioned by anti-money laundering software provider SmartSearch, which launched a new tool to show live sentiment towards all high street and digital banks.
SmartSearch’s Trust Barometer looks at tweets from the past 30 days that mentions a bank’s Twitter handle, analysing the strength of sentiment towards the bank. This then gives an overall visual representation of public opinion towards the UK high street and challenger bank.
“Trust is a huge factor in consumer decision making, with 93% of people saying online reviews impact their buying decisions,” the company said.
Its Trust Barometer shows that at present, Natwest Group (NWG.L) has the worst ratio of negative to positive tweets out of any UK high street or challenger bank, with 59% of tweets to their account being negative.
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The banks with the greatest ratio of negative tweets that followed Natwest were Barclays (BARC.L), Lloyds Bank (LLOY.L) with 45%, Halifax and HSBC (HSBA.L) both with 44%, and Revolut and Standard Chartered (STAN.L) with 37%.
In contrast, digital-only challengers, Atom, Starling and Monzo have strong positive sentiment when compared with high street banks.
It comes as banks and building societies have closed 3,770 branches in the UK since January 2015, exacerbating the shift a towards digital banking.
John Dobson, chief executive at SmartSearch said: “This year forced many of us to adapt to digital or automated services, but it seems consumer trust is lagging behind.
“As anti-money laundering software providers we are aware of the threat of online fraudsters and the concern this gives consumers. Yet, with online banking here to stay, we hope our tool can help consumers looking to switch, open or continue to use online banking by providing live insight into public sentiment.”
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