Trust in Technology

A new research study run by HSBC to understand how people feel about technology turns out some incredible findings where we learn as much about people as we do about the way technology is impacting them.

Amazingly for some, especially those looking at what happened during the global financial crisis, trust is still one of the foundational pillars of an effective bank. Nothing changes there, and it would follow that HSBC's interest in understanding whether potential users of new banking technology are going to be confident interacting robots or not is an important question worth researching.

"The number of mobile banking users is forecast to double between 2015 and 2019 to 1.8 billion"

John Flint | HSBC

That is an incredible market which needs to be tapped of course and there is a huge opportunity here for banks that are ahead of their game. HSBC might have uncovered a tonne of ironies in their quest to answer what people trust or not about technology, including what makes us click when we are on a dinner date and which nations are best at adopting novel technological ideas.

As it happens, only 8% would trust a humanoid advisor programmed by experts to offer mortgage advice, and worryingly; one in seven (14%) would trust a robot programmed by leading surgeons to conduct open heart surgery. I am not sure where peoples' priorities lie, but we can be sure of one thing, banking and trust are clearly inseparable at an ideological level. It should be noted that 9% of people use horoscopes to guide their investment choices, I am just pondering on whether that is the same 9% that trust android mortgage advisors.

If you are FinTech guy or gal, this is an absolute must read LINK. (if you are unable to reach the link, please contact us here LINK)

As a risk framework engineer, it is important for us to appreciate how stakeholders perceive intangible assets and in that respect, there is a lot we can draw from this HSBC publication on trust in all things from novel domains.