How can banks, fintechs build emotional trust?

Bank / Credit Union

How can financial providers like banks and fintechs build emotional credibility? It takes transparency, empathy, reliability and purpose.

August 12, 2025 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator

Trust is a key component to any relationship, even banking. When most people think of trust in banking, they envision security. But there’s another element that banks and fintechs may struggle with: emotional trust and credibility.

Does the customer believe that their bank or fintech provider will actually be there for them and is on their side? Fintechs in particular can struggle with this due to the lack of a human connection in a largely digital business.

How can financial providers like banks and fintechs build that emotional credibility? ATM Marketplace spoke with Alfie Boyle, senior strategist at Conran Design Group, to discuss this topic as well as a study on what makes financial institutions stand out as emotionally trustworthy.

Q. Why do fintechs struggle with emotional credibility?

Boyle: Fintechs are designed to be fast and frictionless. But they often feel flat. What they gain from slick UX and seamless integrations, they sometimes lose in emotional warmth. And that matters more than you might think. Our Citizen Brands 2025 study showed that success, in the world of payments, is linked to whether the consumer believes that you as a brand will make their lives better and be there when it matters.

Many fintechs came of age as disruptors — disrupting processes rather than building relationships, and prioritizing product design rather than brand design. And while that’s fine when things work, trust is tested when something goes wrong. Without a legacy, a physical presence or human touchpoints, a fintech can feel cold, distant and devoid of personality.

Add in public nervousness around data security, and a few high-profile failures (the collapse of Wirecard or fraud allegations at Frank, for example), and you’ve got an industry trying to backfill trust at quite a rate.

Q. What makes a financial provider emotionally credible?

Boyle: Emotional credibility isn’t about marketing. It’s about what a brand says, does and stands for.

In practice, this means four things:

• Reliability — Can I trust you to perform when I need you? That’s table stakes.
• Empathy — Do you treat me like a human being, especially when I’m vulnerable?
• Transparency — Are you upfront about fees, risks and data use — or am I hunting for footnotes and fine print?
• Purpose — Do you stand for something beyond margin and shareholder return?

In Citizens Brands, these areas drive credibility, consistency and betterment. Brands that deliver on all three build reputational equity that’s hard to disrupt.

Q. What are some ways fintechs and banks can rebuild emotional trust?

Boyle: Trust isn’t a campaign: it’s a brand commitment. And rebuilding it starts with aligning brand promises with brand behaviors across every touchpoint. In our work, we often help brands diagnose disconnects between their stated positioning and their lived experience. Do you call yourself ‘radically transparent’ while hiding fees in footnotes? Or ‘community-led’ while offering opaque support during customer distress? Resolving the disconnect is critical.

A clear, credible brand strategy acts as a blueprint. It helps fintechs articulate what they stand for beyond the product, and codifies that into a consistent and coherent brand experience. This includes messaging frameworks that clarify tone, narrative systems that express purpose, and design principles that ensure recognition and trust across every touchpoint.

For newer players, strategic partnerships can lend borrowed equity. But they only work if values are aligned. And for legacy banks, brand strategy is the tool that can modernize without alienating. In both cases, rebuilding trust means showing up with intention, consistency and care, not just looking the part, but being the part too.

Q. You mention consistency as a key issue here. Can you expand on that?

Boyle: Consistency is how brands become trusted, because it’s how they become understood. And it’s not just about visual repetition or operational reliability. It’s about strategic coherence: the same clear promise, reinforced through every behavior, message and experience.

For all brands, consistency starts with codifying what you want to stand for and then building frameworks that make that meaning repeatable. It means tone-of-voice guidelines that hold across channels. Messaging principles that shape what gets said and what doesn’t. And brand architectures that clarify where innovation fits without diluting the core offer.

When brands get this right, trust compounds. People know what to expect, and they believe you’ll deliver it.

Q. Which fintechs get it right and why?

Boyle: Take Chime. Their positioning is centered around financial empowerment and fairness, and that idea comes through consistently, from the human tone of their comms to how they handle customer support. The experience feels like the brand promise in action. And that alignment is what builds belief.

Nubank in Brazil is another standout. In a crowded and often mistrusted market, they’ve built a brand around inclusion and transparency. And they’ve committed to that meaning across touchpoints, from social impact programs to the clarity of their app design. It’s not just smart UX; it’s a brand strategy that’s been lived, not just launched.

Q. What banks get it right and why?

Boyle:Capital One stands out because it hasn’t just digitized its services; it’s reimagined what a bank can feel like. As an early digital disruptor, they’ve evolved into a brand that uses physical experiences to reinforce their brand promise, to change banking for good.

Through their Capital One Cafés, they’ve created brand environments and experiences built around access, education and empowerment, offering co-working spaces, free financial coaching and events. It’s banking as a hospitality experience, designed to reduce the intimidation that can come with conversations about money.

Strategically, it’s a powerful move. It closes the gap between brand promise and lived experience. And it makes a digitally native brand tangible, human and useful in the real world, without losing the clarity or simplicity of its core proposition.

Banks like Capital One are showing that trust isn’t about legacy, it’s about being consistently relevant to people’s lives. And when the brand shows up in relevant and meaningful ways, belief and loyalty will follow.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add?

Boyle: Yes: trust isn’t soft. It’s as beneficial as an asset class. And it’s performing well.

In Citizen Brands 2025, we found that brands that balance the needs of the individual and wider society grow faster, both commercially and reputationally. So this isn’t about being fluffy. It’s about being future-proof. In an age of algorithmic churn and ‘expectation inflation,’ people gravitate towards brands that feel human, stable and aligned. If you can show up with consistency and care, you’re not just a provider — you’re a partner. And that’s where real growth will come.

About Bradley Cooper

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