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Consumers prefer fintechs in peacetime. They have never had to choose in a crisis. |
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One Number
FINTECH COMPANIES NOW SCORE 2.5 TIMES HIGHER ON NET PROMOTER SCORE THAN TRADITIONAL BANKS — FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE SURVEY'S HISTORY. DIGITAL BANKS AVERAGE 52 AGAINST 18 FOR TRADITIONAL BANKS ACROSS 90,000 CUSTOMERS IN 18 COUNTRIES. McKINSEY 2025 RETAIL BANKING SURVEY The preference is driven by fee transparency, mobile experience and speed. The NPS gap is not a rounding error. What it does not measure is what consumers would do if the fintech holding their money came under stress. |
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One Argument The 2.5x NPS lead is a result of product experience. It does not say what consumers would do if the fintech holding their money came under stress.Satisfaction and institutional trust are two different things. They move together in calm conditions and diverge sharply under stress. According to the Edelman 2025 Trust Barometer, banking is the most trusted financial services sub-sector since 2023, with institutional trust in financial services standing at 64% globally — up 15 points since 2015. McKinsey and Edelman are showing opposite trends, but neither is wrong. They are measuring different things. According to Accenture 2025 research, the top switching reasons for customers are product failures at incumbent banks. It is interface, fee model and speed that drive consumer choices — not a considered view on institutional resilience. The McKinsey 2025 Retail Banking Survey confirms that fintechs built their scale on perceived overall value. The customer chose the better product. That is a different decision from choosing where to keep money when fear takes over. Every significant financial stress to date has produced a flight toward large regulated institutions. The most recent confirmation came with the Silicon Valley Bank failure in March 2023, when according to New York University and American Economic Association research, JPMorgan received deposit inflows while regional and digital institutions faced outflows. Institutional trust in banks collapsed after 2008 and took a decade to recover, according to Edelman — but that recovery was in institutional trust, not in product satisfaction. The two tracks have always run separately. The counterargument has real weight. According to the McKinsey Global Banking Annual Review 2025, fintech revenue reached $650 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $2 trillion by 2030 — 9% of total financial services revenue. In Germany, 45% of new bank accounts opened are with neobanks and digital banks, according to McKinsey's German Retail Banking Snapshot 2025. Revolut, Nubank and Robinhood now hold banking licences or equivalent status in their core markets. The historical comparison to unregulated digital platforms may no longer apply. But scale and regulatory status confirm that fintechs are now serious institutions — they do not confirm how depositors will behave when one of them is under pressure for the first time.
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One Position Size your allocation as you would size any position where the exit behaviour under stress is unknown. It should remain smaller than feels comfortable, not larger. Use fintechs for what they are good at — the interface, the cost, the speed. This position reverses if a significant stress event — a fintech failure, a payments freeze, a liquidity crunch at one of the major neobanks — produces no measurable flight to traditional regulated banks. That would be the first time in the modern history of financial crises that the pattern failed. Do you actually understand how the platform holding your money works — or are you just hooked on the returns and the app? |
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