CHICAGO-A new survey found that credit unions continue to rank higher than traditional banks when it comes to consumer trust levels.
According to the latest Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index, 60% of respondents said they found CUs to be trustworthy. Only 30% said the same for big banks.
And that strong score for credit unions isn't just because of their not-for-profit status, said survey co-author Luigi Zingales, the Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance and the David G. Booth Faculty Fellow of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business,
"People trust local more than national banks and trust more credit unions than local banks," said Zingales. "The more local an institution is, the more trusted it is."
The new report found that while financial trust as a whole is on the rise, the numbers are being driven largely by more positive attitudes toward banks and the stock markets.
Meanwhile, Americans are still concerned about rising income inequality and are looking for improvements to the nation's educational system as a starting point to address this issue.
Zingales, along with co-authors David G. Booth, a faculty fellow at the Booth School and Paola Sapienza, Merrill Lynch Capital markets Research professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, conducted the survey between June 18-25, querying 1,014 financial decision makers.
Other survey results include:
- Almost 60% believe that improvements to the educational system are key to fighting income inequality
- Nearly 60% said outsourcing of jobs was the "primary culprit" of income inequality
- Only 38% said income inequality was due to the weakening power of the labor union movement.
- Almost one-third (31%) said they would prefer more taxes for higher-income earners
- Some 7% said inheritance taxes could be an effective way to fight inequality
"While on average, the economy, the housing market and the stock market are doing better, Americans fear that-because of income inequality-most of them will not enjoy the benefits of these improvements," Sapienza said.
