Why do consumers open bank accounts?

by. Ron Shevlin

More goodies from the EY 2014 Global Consumer Banking Survey….

EY asked consumers who had opened and closed bank accounts in the prior 12 months what their reasons for doing so were. Here’s what EY found:

20140224 EYTrust5

My take: These aren’t the “reasons” why consumers opened accounts. The most prevalent (if not only) reason why consumers open a bank account is that they need or want the product.

What EY captured were the factors that influenced consumers’ decisions.

(Before anybody thinks I’m trashing the EY study, let me admit that I’ve made this mistake–i.e., wording the question incorrectly–many times myself in the research I’ve done over the past 15 years).

There are a couple of other mistakes many of us are inclined to make when seeing survey results like this.

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