December 7th, 2022, YouGov
In this piece, we round up the key trends and insights our data revealed in the financial services world for 2022.
If the banking industry was hoping the global vaccine rollout would offer some relief from the uncertainty and dread of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year may have been a disappointment. With inflation rocketing, a war in Ukraine, and – in some markets – a cost of living crisis, 2022 has been another year of political, economic, and financial upheaval.
Over the course of this most turbulent year, our data has explored a range of relevant topics: exploring consumer attitudes towards matters as diverse as climate change, cryptocurrency, and credit card debt.
On a global level, we looked at the cost-of-living cutbacks across the globe – identifying where consumers were tightening their belts across 18 international markets. With some consumers finding themselves with shallower pockets, we also revealed that at least one in ten consumers on average across these markets was planning to reduce their spending on insurance.
In a similar vein, we used YouGov Profiles’ deep-dive capabilities to ask whether consumers felt capable of weathering a financial storm – a concern that rising inflation could have made all too real for many members of the international public. Our research shows that a portion of the public may be leaning on their credit cards, with one in five people across 18 markets reporting that they had some level of credit card debt, and some also using “buy now pay later” solutions.
At the local level as well, 2022 was a year that saw confidence in UK household finances fall to a series of nadirs; our most recent data shows that it was at the lowest point since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also found that Britons with mortgages were likely to cut their everyday spending if interest on their payments increased, and that the value of the UK’s total overdrafts was approaching £3.5bn.
On the business side, we explored attitudes towards Jeremy Hunt’s inaugural Autumn Statement as Chancellor of the Exchequer – finding that businesses mostly thought it offered too little support. In America, we explored the banks US consumers are most likely to consider opening an account with, attitudes towards the cost of goods, and whether the public were as likely to consider cryptocurrency a good investment as they were a year ago.
We also published some global data on cryptocurrency, and the associations it conjures in the minds of international consumers. Suffice to say: not all of them are positive, and on average, consumers are most likely to associate it with currency speculation. But it’s not necessarily the case that mainstream banking escaped scrutiny: our research also asked the public about the responsibility financial services companies have to reduce their carbon footprints.
And what’s more, the above just represents a snapshot of what we’ve written about over the past year – and what we will write about in the year to come. If you want to use sophisticated, in-depth data to tell your story, get in touch and we can help you profile your audience or build your survey.