Lack of understanding and trust is an obstacle to the large-scale adoption of innovative services that would make everyday life easier and safer for millions of people. The HSBC "Trust in Technology" report highlights how certain types of technologies, such as fingerprint recognition, voice recognition or robo-advice, have enormous potential for use in the banking sector as regards the security of payments via smartphone and for investment advice. However, millions of people do not trust these technologies as they have difficulty understanding them, despite the great benefits they could derive from their use.
Study of more than 12.000 people in 11 countries reveals that four out of five people (80%) believe technology is making their lives easier but less than half of respondents (46%) are more confident in fingerprint recognition as a security system compared to passwords, although it is well known that fingerprint reading is at least five times safer and more comfortable than a traditional password.
84% of those interviewed say they want to share their personal data with their credit institutions only if this is necessary to obtain a better service, however underlining the need to inform customers about the specific benefits of new technologies.
Furthermore, the data revealed that, for the respondents, it is not only important that banks provide protection for their finances, but it is also necessary that they are able to offer protection for their personal data.
However, people trust passwords more to identify themselves (70%) than fingerprint recognition, used by a fifth of the sample (21%) and voice recognition (6%), despite the advantages that these have in terms of safety.
People trust a robot more for heart surgery (14%) than the percentage that emerges when it comes to relying on a robot for opening a bank account (7%). Only 11% of respondents would trust any type of robot, including chatbots, to open bank accounts or mortgage advice, despite the enormous ability of machines to analyze large amounts of data to help identify the best solution .
Contrary to what emerged from the research, men (45% against 38%) believe they are the first to use new technologies but in reality they use them less than women.
While men are the biggest users of PCs and laptops, faxes, pagers and landlines, women use more wearable technology, apps and tablets than men. Also while there is some optimism about the progressive nature of the technologies, the vast majority of people have never heard of them and even if they have heard of them, they still can't explain what they are.
The least understood technologies are:
1. Blockchains (80%)
2. Robo-advisers (69%)
3. Financial applications integrated with social media, such as WeChat or Facebook (60%)
Nearly one in four people (24%) have never heard of or do not know what a voice-activated technology is, even though it is widely available on most smartphones.
As a result, the data underline that more reliance is placed on already established methods of managing money through the use of traditional channels such as:
1. Online banking services through the bank's website (67%)
2. ATMs (55%)
3. Branch visits (41%)
“Digital technology is evolving rapidly and now customers can carry out banking operations more easily and quickly, in the safest way possible.
“While people say they value the security of their personal data enormously, they still don't understand that adopting new technologies can help them protect their personal information. Our report highlights that in many cases there is a lack of understanding of new technologies and therefore people are not able to trust them,” said John Flint, Global Chief Executive of Retail Banking and Wealth Management at HSBC.
According to the study, to build trust and to accelerate the use of new technologies it is essential to increase knowledge and understanding of them, create a certain predictability and reassure users of the degree of safety.
The report found that with a simple explanation of how the voice recognition device works, “confidence in biometrics” rose from 45% to 51%.
Confidence in technology not only changes based on gender, age and geographic location but, with surprising results, also based on usage.
