The steps U.S. banks have taken to rebuild their trust with customers do not appear to have worked much.
About 55% of U.S. retail banking customers have less confidence in banks now than they did a year ago, according to a new survey from Ernst & Young. That's less discouraging than the situation in the U.K., where 63% report a declining sense of trust in banks, but it's still worse than the global average.
Ernst & Young's survey of 20,500 consumers, conducted at the end of 2010 in 23 countries across North and South America, Europe and Asia as well as in South Africa, found that 44% of respondents worldwide report having less confidence in the banking industry than they did 12 months ago. The results were released Monday.
Confidence levels in emerging markets have held up the best, and in some cases improved. Three-quarters of customers in India said trust in their banks rose during 2010, while in Brazil and China, a majority of those polled said their confidence had grown or remained the same.
