No Surprise: Distrust Leads to Money Moving

When you’ve got this —

“Only 23% Trust U.S. Financial System: Poll” (MarketWatch)

Americans are more distrustful of their financial institutions, according to a new poll that shows only 23% of those surveyed said they trust the country’s financial systems, down from 25% in June. The figures are from the quarterly Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index, which measures trust in four areas: banks, the stock market, mutual funds and large corporations. “The findings in this issue reflect what’s been reported in the news and demonstrate the fragility of trust many Americans still have in the institutions where they invest their money,” said Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and co-author of the index. —

this —

“Demand for Cash Shows No Signs of Fading” (Real Time Economics)

Cash may no longer be king, but it’s looking like good old paper money has a solid future in front of it, a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argues.

The report, released Monday and written by Jeremy Gerst and Daniel Wilson, argues that the proliferation of electronic payment methods isn’t dislodging a continuing strong interest in cash. You may be able to pay for coffee with a credit card these days, but even so, paper money will be sticking around much as it always has for years to come.

“Demand for U.S. currency — cold, hard cash — shows no sign of fading,” the analysts wrote. “Alternative payment technologies have tended to keep cash growth in check, but other factors have more than offset this. Over the next 10 years, cash volume is projected to grow 1.7% per year,” they noted. —

and this —

“Credit Unions Seeing Surge In New Accounts” (Consumerist)

As you may have heard, more than a few people around the country have been out and about in recent weeks in protest of — well, in protest of a lot of things. But what many of these people (and many of us who are sitting in our homes) share in common is that they’re fed up with the super-sized banks and are looking for alternatives. This appears to have led a growing number of people to the front door of their local credit unions.

The Navy Federal Credit Union, the world’s largest credit union with $46 billion in assets and 3.8 million members, tells ABC News it’s seen a threefold spike in new checking accounts since this time last year.

The chief executive officer of the Chicago Patrolmen’s Federal Credit Union, is seeing similar growth: “In October, we’re on pace to go about 40 percent above that in new checking account and debit card activity.”

“In our experience, this is new,” Karen Tyson, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions’ senior vice president for marketing and communications, told ABC News. “This is a different phenomenon. There seems to be quite a bit of distrust, quite a bit of apprehension, quite a bit of frustration among the average Americans out there with the larger institutions and the Wall Street institutions.” —

don’t seem surprising at all.