More than half of Canadians feel stress when interacting with Canada’s financial services sector and believe they would benefit from increased competition and transparency in the financial services market. The findings indicate this is especially true among women, young people, and new Canadians. Among the biggest sources of dissatisfaction are high fees and a lack of choice.
The findings are derived from two surveys conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights. One was of a randomly-selected sample of 2,001 Canadians 18 years of age or older. The other was of a randomly-selected sample of 600 Canadian small business owners. In each, respondents were asked about their experiences with Canada’s financial services sector.
Key findings:
About half of Canadians (52%) and small business owners (51%) feel stress when interacting with the financial services sector. Those who operate larger small businesses (10+ employees) are significantly more stressed (72%). Moreover, the majority (54%) of these larger small business owners feel the amount of time they spend dealing with the financial services sector is getting in the way of them actually running and growing their business, twice the overall level among small business owners (26%). Immigrant small business owners are more likely to be stressed by their interactions with the sector.
Over two-thirds of Canadians believe more competition in the financial services sector would lead to a greater choice in products (70%) and lower financial services fees (67%). Moreover, small business owners are over four times more likely to agree than disagree with the sentiment that Canadian small businesses would benefit from increased competition in the financial services sector (64% vs. 14%).
Among specific changes tested, Canadians are most likely to feel they would personally benefit from easier ways to ‘shop around’ to get the best possible rate (75% would benefit), easier ways to transfer money quickly and securely (73%), and tools that help make personalised investment decisions (69%).
Among specific changes tested, small business owners are most likely to feel they would benefit from easier ways to ‘shop around’ to get the best possible rate (73% would benefit), better ways to transfer funds between different accounts (68%), and alternatives to credit cards with lower interchange fees for merchants (62%).
There is widespread agreement among the users of Non-Bank Fintech Apps that they are easy to use (91%), have lower fees (82%), and help save money (73%).
To access the full survey data, click here.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now