Banks need to tailor data strategies to clients, paper says

Dutch consumers’ willingness to support the use of their payments data is highly dependent on the final use the data is put to, a research paper released by the Netherlands Bank shows.

In Do consumers want to keep them in a safe or turn them into gold?, Carin van der Cruijsen argues that when their data is used safely, most people support its usage. But “most consumers find it unacceptable for banks to sell their payments data or spending patterns obtained from these data to other companies”, the paper says.

The study has also found out that most people are unwilling to share their personal information with non-financial companies in order to use a payment application or get a financial overview.

The author recommends banks be transparent with their customers regarding the usage of their data to preserve their trust. She puts forward two strategies for them to follow. Banks should set up an individual data usage policy “tailored towards the wishes of each specific customer, or choose to build a customer base that consists of a specific type of customer”, the author says.