How relationships between banks´ customers and advisors affect customer saving

Important results from the project

The aim of the project is to study how bank advisors affect bank customers´ savings. The studies show that the advisor affects the savings most among the least active customers and those who have least knowledge of financial markets. There is a big difference between men and women - women change their behavior more than men because of financial advisors. All in all, the results indicate that the advisors affect the savings of bank customers, but not for the wealthy and well-educated men. We also find that trust is not as important as previous research shows, but that customer data is crucial.

Expected long term effects

We find that advice giving is data-driven and thus similar to online advice, which may mean that customers will use online counseling more in the future. However, it is important for the banks to use data on the customer´s unique situation to give them advice that will change their behavior. For financial markets, it is then important for advisers to act responsibly and guide and train clients in financial decision-making. The financial sector´s players should therefore continue to act and regulate so that data on the customer is used to help them make informed decisions.

Approach and implementation

The project is built around a unique data collection, where we combine consumer behavior with their perceptions. This is important, since we combine the bank customer´s perception of the relationship with the bank advisor with the customer´s actual behavior. We have around 90,000 such observations and it produced really good results. Data is analyzed with statistical analysis in the form of regressions and more advanced statistical analysis to study causality and differences between groups.