Breaking Inertia

What will it take to change customer attitudes to financial services?
In November 2016, at Bristol’s first UK Social Media Week, True launched Open Finance – a programme of discussion, debate and research exploring the challenges and opportunities facing the financial services industry.
Our launch event focused on the role of social media in democratising money management and building trust and confidence amongst consumers. And our discussion kept returning to one key obstacle: inertia.
In a world proliferating in new platforms, disruption and opportunity, mainstream interest, excitement and uptake is low. Very low. That’s despite huge investment in a simple Current Account Switch Service and a FCA commitment to Project Innovate and an experimental sandbox mentality, all in service of better options for customers.
So why does no one care enough to move their money?
We set out to uncover the root causes of customer inertia – and understand what brands can do to break it.
In 2017, we convened a round-table of interested parties, with delegates representing established banks, fintechs and regulation and teamed up with research agency Strive to study people’s attitudes to fintech in depth. Through a mix of quantitative and qualitative research, conducted over the past year, we’ve heard what customers really think of financial providers – including some of fintech’s poster children.
Our findings couldn’t be more timely. The era of Open Banking is upon us. As customers, we are empowered to select the best services for our circumstances, with confidence that our data is secure. Change is here. All we need to do is make customers want it.
Our Breaking Inertia report reveals 6 fundamental customer truths from our research and 3 steps we believe are key to changing behaviour in 2018 and beyond.
We hope you’ll find it valuable. To view the report, please click the download button (top right).