45% of Consumers Trust Primary Banks to Keep Payments Credentials Secure

Storing payment credentials is a practice increasing by leaps and bounds from streaming services to food delivery, with PYMNTS research finding that 60% of consumers on average store payment credentials. The question is, whom do they truly trust with these credentials?

Examining this in the study “Consumer Interest in Credentials Vaults: Traditional FIs Fight Digital Alternatives for Consumer Trust,” PYMNTS surveyed over 2,300 U.S. consumers about who they most trust to manage this sensitive data, and some of the findings are surprising.

Overall, 46% of consumers who used stored credentials to pay for 75% or more of their subscriptions or online purchases expressed elevated interest in credentials vaults, with just over half (51%) saying they would use a vault for most or all their transactions.

What wasn’t surprising is the level of trust consumers have in their primary banking institutions, with fraud protections they’ve come to rely on and rarely question.

What does jump out are the relative newcomers that have rapidly gained consumer trust with regard to managing vaulted payment credentials for a variety of purchases.

“Trust in tech companies such as PayPal or Amazon to provide a vault has increased since September 2022,” the study found. “In September 2022, 40% of consumers trusted PayPal to provide a vault, and 37% trusted Amazon. These shares increased in January 2023, reaching 49% for PayPal and 43% for Amazon.”

“Interestingly, consumers more interested in using a vault tend to trust non-FIs more than banks to provide this service,” the study added. “Among highly interested consumers, 64% would trust a non-FI or FinTech to provide the vault service. Among those who are just slightly interested in using a vault service, the share drops to 46%.”

While security is a top concern for all consumers, those using stored credentials to make 75% or more of their purchases prize other attributes of vaults and credentials, and security is not a the top of that list.

Those consumers “are more interested in non-security-related features than those who use stored credentials for a lower share of purchases,” with 67% of consumers who use stored credentials for 75% or more of their purchases prioritizing fast payment processing. But below that 75% group, trust in nonbank entities drops to 56%, “indicating that fast payment processing motivates these consumers significantly less. After all, the more consumers pay with stored credentials, the more interested they are in streamlining the payment process.”