Undressing in public: Harnessing the power of Web 2.0 to rebuild trust in banking

Banks have historically been trusted, valued members of the community, but globalization and new-age communications have combined to put distance between institution and customer. Rebuilding trust requires listening to customers and complete transparency. In a time of global financial turmoil, banks intent upon reconnecting with an increasingly diverse, fragmented and suspicious customer base should "bare all" and use the varied and powerful tools of Web 2.0 at their disposal.

In years past, the bank was a central focus in the community. Bank managers held positions of privilege and authority based on trust, and the strength of banks was founded upon the relationships they built with customers.

Today, however, globalization, and the speed of information are rapidly transforming traditional banking. The world is becoming smaller. But, in a period where margins have been steadily decreasing – or vanishing – strong customer relationships and trust have become more important than ever.¹ The transparent, open dialogue available through Web 2.0, visible to all customers, is a method we believe banks can use to help rebuild these relationships and engender trust.

Many people today are beginning to use Web 2.0 tools – social networking, blogging, wikis, mashups and the like – to build rela-tionships and help them with decisions about virtually every facet of their daily lives, from whom to date, to what to buy, to, even, where to bank.

To read the full study, download the PDF files at the top of this page.

References

¹ Banerjea,Sunny, Kim Hedley, Cormac Petit and John White. "The Paradox of Banking 2015, Achieving more by doing less." IBM Institute for Business Value. November 22, 2005.