Having been involved in the PFM industry for two decades, I’ve long taken the position that it was the bank’s business to lose. While consumers may not always like their bank, most continue to trust them with their money. And that’s an advantage not easily overcome by newcomers. 

I was reminded of the trust factor when I looked at Change Sciences latest report on PFM usability (subscription). As you can see at right, the researcher charted Trust (horizontal axis) vs. Likelihood (to use the service).

The two most trustworthy PFM offerings, by a significant margin (+20%), were operated by banks:

• PNC Virtual Wallet
• Chase Blueprint

It was less clear how trustworthiness correlated with trial. In this 12-company study, users were most likely to try the most trusted site, PNC Virtual Wallet, after sampling it. But Chase, with the second most trusted site, was tied with less-trusted sites Mint and newcomer Pocketbook (headquartered in Singapore) for likelihood to try. Not surprisingly, many factors besides trust will impact trial. 

Bottom line: With only two bank-run PFMs in the chart, there isn’t nearly enough data to conclude that banks have an inherent trust advantage in personal financial management. And even if they do, it’s difficult to prove that trust actually LEADS to more usage (trust could simply be correlated, without causation).

Nevertheless, these two data points are encouraging for banks. Both PNC and Chase, who have invested millions on personal financial management, have managed to wow consumers with their offering. PNC Virtual Wallet has also previously finished on top of the Change Sciences UX scorecard.

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Note:
For more info, see the Online Banking Report PFM library (subscription required): PFM 4.0 (June 2012); PFM 3.0 (May 2010); Social Personal Finance (June 2007); Personal Finance Features for Online Banking (Aug 2006).