How financial brands can earn trust on social platforms

Gareth Harrison, Strategy & Innovation Director at Brave Bison, talks about why customers are tired of hearing about “trust” and “authenticity” – and why partnering with creators might be the answer.

Only a quarter of consumers trust financial brands to act in their best interest. For businesses built around managing people’s money, that is an uncomfortable place to be.

The instinct has been to refine how brands communicate, with more control and sharper focus on getting the message right. It makes sense on paper, just less so when you look at how people actually make financial decisions.

Spend five minutes on social and you start to see a very different picture. People comparing decisions, questioning advice, sharing what has worked and what has not. None of it sounds like how brands usually talk, and that is exactly the point.

‘Trust’ ‘Authenticity’ – we get it

Authenticity and transparency have become the default language in financial services. They are presented as differentiators, even though they sit firmly in the realm of expectation.

No one is actively choosing a bank that uses confusing terms or lacks transparency. In the same way, consumers are not searching for a financial product because it feels more authentic than the rest. These are baseline signals that operate in the background.

What becomes more noticeable is how often the brand remains at the centre of the story. Messaging is consistent and carefully constructed, yet still rooted in the brand’s own perspective.

That perspective creates distance. Financial services continue to prioritise how it comes across, while the conversations shaping decisions are happening elsewhere.

On social content anchored in the brand struggles to hold attention because it sits outside of how people naturally talk about money. The conversations that resonate are grounded in lived experience and shared between people trying to make sense of it all.

Money is discussed before it is decided

Financial services do not operate in isolation. People approach the space with a level of scepticism built over time. With 79% of young people encountering online scams each month, concern is now embedded in how financial decisions are approached and how brands are perceived.

When decisions are made, people turn to those around them. They draw on shared experience and familiar perspectives to sense-check what feels right. That behaviour has extended into social, where these conversations now play out at scale and in full view.

The opportunity is to hijack the momentum of these existing conversations, showing up in a way that aligns with how people already question and learn about money.

The brands making progress recognise this shift. They operate within these environments, understanding that influence sits across customers, creators and communities, and that credibility develops through participation in those networks.

From reach to relationship capital

Creators have played a significant role in opening up a category that once felt closed. They question decisions, call out poor practice and make financial choices visible in a way that feels immediate and relatable.

Working with them becomes a signal of credibility. It reflects a willingness to be part of the same conversations that are already shaping perception in a space where community and trust have already been built. Consumers are looking for reassurance from people who feel aligned to their situation.

An audience is who you want to speak to. A community is who you grow with, shaped over time through people sharing experiences and influencing each other’s decisions, becoming part of an ongoing exchange. Most financial brands have built reach, but relationships are harder to find, because that interaction sits between people rather than the brand itself. This introduces a challenge. It requires a level of openness that sits uncomfortably alongside regulation and compliance. Control of the narrative has long been a defining feature of the category. Lloyds have recently taken a different approach to social, creating content that puts the audience, and potential customers, first. Sure, it helps to put people in the content, we’ve known for some time that this is a social effectiveness driver. But they take it one step further by playing into a tension or data points that helps unpack their meaning for an audience.

When every pound carries weight

Financial decisions sit alongside pressure and comparison, often shaped by moments that feel far more personal than any product benefit can capture. Every pound becomes a pressure point, particularly as the cost of everyday life rises and financial confidence falls.

Parents are one example of how financial pressure is being felt in deeply personal ways, with money worries shaping everyday decisions, confidence and family life. In that context, brands have to show they understand the reality people are dealing with, connecting with lived experience rather than relying too heavily on product-led messaging. TSB reflected this well through their ‘cost of parenting’ campaign.

At the same time, the need for this shift is becoming more urgent. Gen Z has the lowest levels of financial literacy at 38%, while also being deeply immersed in social platforms as a source of information and influence.

As physical branches disappear, opportunities for face-to-face interaction are reducing. Social is filling that gap. It is where people go to make sense of rising costs, changing interest rates and an increasingly complex financial landscape, through voices they recognise and content that feels more digestible.

With 77% of Gen Z and 61% of millennials actively seeking financial advice through social and online platforms, this is where the opportunity sits. Influence is shaped within these networks, with financial brands operating alongside the voices guiding how money is understood.

This is the move from brand-led to peer-to-peer. It reshapes the role of financial brands. Credibility and relevance now comes from participation, not position.