Citizens falls out of top five most trusted retail banks

PROVIDENCE – Citizens Bank fell out of the top five in a ranking of the most trusted companies for retail banking by the Ponemon Institute.

Traverse City, Mich.-based Ponemon Institute’s 11th annual Privacy Trust Study for Retail Banking was released this week.

The study, conducted over a 12-month period that ended in April, surveyed 5,453 American adult consumers and measured consumer perceptions of trustworthiness for retail banking institutes.
Specifically, it looked at issues related to consumer privacy and data security, and ways in which retail banking institutions address them.
U.S. Bank, based in Minneapolis, ranked first.

According to the Ponemon Institute, U.S. Bank is the only bank to rank in the top five for all 11 years, and has been No. 1 for the past nine years. Second place went to Ally Financial Inc. of Detriot; third, PNC Bank of Pittsburgh and Wells Fargo of San Francisco (tied); fourth, BB&T Bank of Winston-Salem, N.C.; and fifth, Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati.
Last year, the top five banks were almost the same, although Citizens held the fifth spot, Fifth Third was third and PNC Bank of Pittsburgh and Wells Fargo Bank of San Francisco were tied for fourth.
Despite publicity around data breaches in the financial services sector, the study found that there was a “slight rebound” in consumers’ trust in the privacy commitments of their banks.
Since 2009, trust in banks’ privacy commitments has steadily declined from 44 percent to 34 percent of consumers surveyed in 2014.
“The downward trend was broken this year when 38 percent of consumers surveyed say they have trust in the privacy and data security practices of their bank,” according to the institute.
Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute, said they believe consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about “what constitutes a secure banking experience.”
“They are choosing to bank with those institutions they believe are making the necessary investments in people, processes and technologies to safeguard their personal information,” he said in a statement. “These investments are critical because as revealed in this and past studies, a significant number of customers will abandon their relationship with the bank if their personal information is lost or stolen.”

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