Trust assessment of account information services providers in Portugal

: Banks, Bigtechs, and Fintechs

Abstract

Account Information Services (AIS) enable users to consolidate all of their payment accounts information in a single platform. Banks, Bigtechs, and Fintechs are the main candidates to compete in the AIS market. Banks argue that consumers’ trust puts them in a favourable position to dominate this market. However, since the recent global financial crisis the level of trust in banks is considered debatable. The main purpose of this research is to conclude if banks are right to hold consumers’ trust as a positive differentiator from other providers. After a careful assessment of the elements determinant to the levels of trust in financial services, the usage of a primary data source allowed this research to compare different scores between institutions, not only regarding overall trust, but also in each determinant. Furthermore, this study measured the strength of the correlations between determinants and the overall institutional scores, as well as between individual’s trust in the financial system and in each institution. The results showed that there is no apparent sign that banks are about to be overthrown as AIS market leaders due to the levels of trust in financial services providers.However, individuals’ strong association of banks with the system, along with the highest score of Bigtechs in several determinants, and Fintechs opportunity from their image’s disconnection with the system, can make the outlook change in the near future.

Date of Award	15 Oct 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	João Guerreiro Freire de Andrade (Supervisor)