New York, NY (June 30, 2016) - American Banker has released its 7th annual Bank Reputation Survey, assessing the corporate reputations of banking companies as perceived by U.S. consumers. Regions Financial captured the top spot among customers for the second year in a row and the top spot overall. Several of the nation’s largest banks saw their scores improve markedly versus last year.
The annual Survey of Bank Reputations measures U.S. consumers’ perceptions of major bank brands, providing a detailed analysis of the components that formulate corporate reputations, and how each bank rates on those measures. Scores are based on the results of an online survey fielded by Reputation Institute in the first quarter of 2016.
This year’s findings revealed a significant shift in the perception of the largest bank brands. Chase, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo all registered significant gains in their scores, shrinking an image gap relative to regional banks that has persisted in the years since the financial crisis. Of the 33 banks evaluated this year, 10 banks had an “excellent” reputation among their customers, compared to eight in 2015.
Regional banks as a group still scored higher than the large banks overall, averaging 78.5 on a 100-point reputation scale (roughly the same as last year), while large banks improved to 75.8 (up 5 points from last year).
“All the action is around the bounce-back of large banks,” said Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, a vice president at the Reputation Institute. “They’ve just done a better job of romancing those customers, taking better care of them, whereas you don’t see that continuing momentum at the regional banks.”
Full results of the survey are available at AmericanBanker.com and in the July issue of American Banker Magazine. An in-depth feature on Synovus’ reputation rebound is also available in this issue.
For the second year in a row, Regions Financial had the top reputation score from customers. KeyBank jumped to second place and Capital One to third place. In a milestone for the big banks, Chase cracked the top 10.
"The most reputable banks recognize that perceptions of governance - inclusive of ethics, openness, honesty, and transparency, carries the most weight of importance among customers and noncustomers," says Hahn-Griffiths. "However, they also realize that beyond the table stakes of delivering on products and services, that perceptions of workplace are increasingly important, accounting for 14.6% of their reputation among customers and 14.8% among non-customers."
In assessing reputations, banks were judged both on the perceptions of their customers and non-consumers. Four banks have the distinction of being in the top 10 with both categories of consumers: Regions, Synovus, Cullen/Frost Bankers, and Ally Bank.
“Regions and Synovus had struggled during the financial crisis, but the changes they made then are really paying off now,” said Bonnie McGeer, Executive Editor of American Banker. “Both are pursuing a customer-centric and community-centric strategy that is resonating in their markets.”
Get an overview of the trends, and an in depth look at Synovus’ reputation rebound, at AmericanBanker.com/bank-reputations-2016. Additional information is available at www.reputationinstitute.com/us-banking-reptrak.
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Reputation Institute (RI) is the world’s leading consulting and advisory firm for reputation. RI enables many of the world’s leading companies to make more confident business decisions that build and protect reputation capital, analyze risk and sustainability topics, and drive competitive advantage. RI’s most prominent management tool is the RepTrak® model for analyzing the reputations of companies and institutions — best known via the Global RepTrak® 100, the world’s largest and most comprehensive study of corporate reputations, as well as Country RepTrak® and City RepTrak® studies that look at reputation across organizations within a given geography.
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